Big jolt to PRTC outsourced workers: HC denies regularization claim
Chandigarh, September 10, 2026: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that employees recruited through private outsourcing agencies and deployed with the Pepsu Road Transport Corporation – PRTC - cannot claim regularisation merely on the basis of long service, when they were never appointed by the Corporation or granted any employment status by it.
The matter was assisted by Advocate-General M S Bedi and PRTC standing counsel Abhilaksh Gaind, along with other assisting advocates for Corporation. Senior advocate Rajiv Pratap Atma Ram, along with advocates were also present for the respondents.
A Division Bench comprising Justice Harsimran Singh Sethi and Justice Minderjeet Yadav delivered the ruling while allowing four appeals filed by PRTC against an April 22 order of a Single Judge. The Single Judge had directed regularisation of employees working with PRTC through an outsourcing agency.
The Division Bench set aside the order and dismissed the writ petitions, holding that the master-servant relationship between PRTC and the workers must be established through documentary evidence, including appointment orders.
The Court noted that the workers, including drivers and conductors, had been recruited and appointed by a private outsourcing agency from the very beginning. Their deployment with PRTC was pursuant to a manpower-supply contract between the Corporation and the agency.
“It is a conceded fact that there is no appointment order issued by the PRTC at any given point of time during the service career of the respondents,” the Bench observed, adding that PRTC had not conferred upon them any status, whether temporary, ad hoc or officiating.
The Court further held that an appointment made by a private agency cannot be treated as an appointment made by PRTC so as to impose liability on the Corporation to regularise such workers.
The Bench also made a clear distinction between contractual employees directly engaged by PRTC and outsourced employees working through a private agency. Long service with PRTC, it held, does not by itself confer the status of PRTC employees or create a right to regularisation.
The ruling effectively sets aside the earlier direction for regularisation and reinforces the legal distinction between directly appointed contractual employees and workers supplied through outsourcing agencies.
Added here, the ruling comes at a time when the issue of outsourced employment is already under wider policy consideration in Punjab. It is likely to have a significant bearing on over 2,000 outsourced workers in the transport sector who have been seeking job security, equal pay and permanent status. The Punjab Government has also recently passed the Punjab State Outsourced Personnel (Transition to Contractual Engagement) Bill, 2026, aimed at transitioning eligible Group-C and Group-D outsourced personnel from private agencies to direct contractual engagement with the State Government after three to five years of service. However, the High Court’s ruling makes it clear that outsourced workers appointed and continuing under private agency arrangements cannot automatically claim regularisation through the courts in the absence of a direct master-servant relationship with the concerned Corporation.