The Punjab and Haryana high court has turned down the plea of outsourced employees of PEPSU Roadways Transport Corporation (PRTC) seeking regularisation of their services. Though 90 such employees appeared before the court, the number of such workers, including drivers and helpers, in PRTC is estimated to be 2,000.

Allowing the petition by PRTC, the high court bench of justice HS Sethi and justice Minderjeet Yadav quashed the single-judge order of April 2026 that directed the corporation to regularise the services of outsourced drivers and conductors.

They were hired through private firm SS Service Providers over a period of 10-12 years and were seeking job regularisation, citing the length of their service.

No master-servant relationship: PRTC

The PRTC legal team, led by advocate general MS Bedi and its standing counsel Abhilaksh Gaind, had argued that in the absence of the master and servant relationship between the PRTC and these workers, they cannot claim regularisation of services.

An outsourced employee, who was working through an outsourcing private agency, though working with the government or its agency, cannot claim the status of an employee of the government or the corporation to seek regularisation, they argued.

The court opined that the master and servant relationship needed to be proved on the basis of written documents, including the appointment order.

“The appointment orders of the private respondents (workers) have been issued by the said private agency, and the only duties being performed by the respondents with the PRTC upon deployment by this private agency is in pursuance to the contract for providing manpower between the PRTC and the said private outsourcing agency,” it said.

“Merely because, after being appointed by a private agency, they are discharging their duties with the PRTC, they cannot be said to have gained the status of employees of the PRTC so as to claim regularisation of services. Such a proposition cannot be accepted,” the court asserted.

It further noted that if the single-judge order was implemented, it would put the PRTC in financial difficulty, without there being any consideration as to whether such financial liability can be borne by the corporation.

The court also found that the salaries and provident fund of such workers were being managed by the contractor and not by the PRTC. As such, holding the PRTC as an employer of such workers, so as to regularise their services, would be by ignoring certain obvious facts, which cannot be done, it added.