Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court ruled in favour of a nurse who served 36 years in the Eastern Naval Command and directed the authorities to pay Rs 10 lakh to her for the gross abuse of power by them and the grave injustice done to her despite her long service.
Germina Peter was appointed as a nurse in the Naval Family Clinic, Nausena Baugh, Visakhapatnam, in 1973 on a consolidated pay of Rs 300 per month.
She moved the High Court in 1999 challenging the decision of the authorities in rejecting her request for absorption into regular service. She urged the court to treat her as a regular staff nurse with effect from the date of her initial appointment and extend pay scale and other benefits on par with nurse of the department.
The authorities contended that the petitioner had accepted the ter-ms and conditions of her appointment and joined a Non-Public Fund Organisation, could not claim regularisation of her services or other privileges on par with regular employees.
Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar applying the directions of the apex court in Vinod Kulshreshtha versus Union Of India to the present case, ruled that the manner in which the petitioner was dealt with for nearly 20 years clearly establishes that her employment was on par with regular employees.
The judge said her services were exploited mo-st inhumanly and arbitrarily by a state instrumentality for nearly 36 years and at the time of her unceremonious termination from service she was being paid a paltry Rs 2,300 per month.
The judge observed, “The Navy, which boasts of offering an ocean of opportunities to its employees, can hardly justify the rank illegality of its actions in the present case”.
The judge directed the authorities to pay the petitioner the pay-scale on par with a regular staff-nurse from the year 1993.
Justice Sanjay ruled that she would not be entitled to pension and gratuity as payable to a regular employee, however, keeping in mind the gross abuse of power by the authorities and grave injustice done to her, the Court directs that the authorities pay damages to her.
