A chowkidar faked his service record. The Supreme Court said he can be fired without a hearing.

He was a daily-wage guard for 6 months. Then someone added his name to a list that required 3 years of work.

Karamjit Singh walked into the Punjab Urban Planning and Development Authority (PUDA) office in December 1995 as a chowkidar. By March 1997, his name had disappeared from the daily attendance sheets. He had worked barely half a year. Four years later, in December 2001, he was a regular employee with a permanent job. The gap between those two facts was not time. It was fraud.

When the muster rolls did not match

The Punjab government issued a policy in January 2001 offering regularization—making temporary workers permanent—to daily-wage employees who had completed 3 years of continuous service before January 22, 2001. Karamjit Singh had worked from December 1995 to March 1997. That is roughly 16 months, not 36. He did not qualify.

Yet his name appeared on the final regularization list. Someone inside PUDA had interpolated his name into the records. The court would later call this "collusion with certain officials." By December 26, 2001, Karamjit Singh was a regularized employee drawing a permanent salary.

Other employees noticed

They challenged the list. PUDA investigated. What they found was straightforward: Karamjit Singh's name had been inserted into documents he had never been part of. The muster rolls—the daily attendance sheets—showed only 6 months of work. The regularization list showed 3 years. The numbers did not match.

In May 2003, PUDA's Chief Administrator issued a show-cause notice asking Karamjit Singh why his regularization should not be cancelled. He was given a personal hearing. Then the order came: his regularization was annulled. He was a daily-wage guard again. Then he was nothing.

The High Court said: give him a hearing

Karamjit Singh did not accept this. He first went to the Punjab & Haryana High Court, which directed PUDA to treat his challenge as a representation. PUDA rejected it. He then approached the Labour Court, which dismissed his case in October 2013. The Industrial Tribunal (a court that handles disputes between workers and employers) agreed: the regularization was obtained by fraud, and the cancellation was valid.

But the High Court took a different view. A Single Judge in February 2018 set aside the Tribunal's award. The Division Bench—two judges sitting together—affirmed that decision in July 2018. Their reasoning: PUDA had terminated a regular employee without holding a proper disciplinary enquiry. Under the PUDA Employees (Punishment and Appeal) Regulations, 1997, and the principles laid down in the landmark ECIL v. Karunakar case, an employee must be given a full hearing before being fired. The High Court said Karamjit Singh deserved that hearing.

The Supreme Court asked one question

PUDA appealed to the Supreme Court. The bench—Justice Indu Malhotra and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit—heard the case in April 2019. The question was deceptively simple: could a person who got his job through fraud claim the protections that honest employees enjoy?

The court answered with a single word: no.

The reasoning was surgical. An appointment obtained through fraud and misrepresentation is void ab initio—invalid from the very beginning. It does not exist in the eyes of the law. If the appointment itself is a nullity, the person never became an 'employee' in the legal sense. And if you are not an employee, you cannot claim the protections that employees have: no right to a disciplinary enquiry, no right to notice, no right to the procedural safeguards under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (the law that governs how workers can be removed from their jobs).

The court distinguished the ECIL v. Karunakar precedent. That case dealt with employees who were validly appointed but denied a fair hearing during termination. Karamjit Singh was never validly appointed. The two situations were legally different.

Why the Industrial Disputes Act did not help

The High Court had also invoked Sections 25-F, 25-G, and 25-H of the Industrial Disputes Act—provisions that require notice, compensation, and a fair procedure before a worker can be retrenched (laid off). The Supreme Court held that these provisions only apply to a 'workman' who is lawfully employed. A person who sneaks into a job through forged records is not a workman. He is a fraudster. The law does not protect fraud.

The court also rejected the argument that Article 311 of the Constitution (which protects government employees from dismissal without a proper inquiry) applied. Article 311 covers persons employed in civil capacities under the Union or a State. Karamjit Singh was a daily-wage chowkidar of a statutory authority. Even if Article 311 could be stretched to cover him, the court said, it would not help. A person who secures appointment by fraud cannot claim constitutional protections meant for legitimate employees.

Fired, but with Rs. 25,000

The Supreme Court allowed PUDA's appeal. It set aside the High Court's orders. Karamjit Singh's regularization was gone. The termination order of May 2003 stood. But the court directed PUDA to let him withdraw the Rs. 25,000 that the authority had deposited as costs during the litigation. It was not compensation. It was a gesture.

The court ended with a clean ratio: an order of regularization obtained by misrepresenting facts or by playing fraud upon the competent authority is void ab initio and cannot be sustained in law. A person who secures appointment through fraudulent interpolation of records does not acquire the status of a validly appointed employee.

THE PLAY: If an appointment is void from the start because of fraud, the employer can cancel it without a disciplinary enquiry—the protections of the Industrial Disputes Act and service regulations only apply to employees who were validly appointed in the first place.

Six months of work. A forged list. Fourteen years of litigation. One sentence from the Supreme Court: fraud unravels everything.