Calcutta High Court news: Underscoring that the discretionary relief cannot be granted when equity that existed in favour of one melts into total insignificance due to the passage of time, the Calcutta High Court has dismissed a plea of employees seeking the regularisation of their roles.

A division bench of Justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Partha Sarathi Chatterjee was dealing with a plea of three employees seeking direction from the state to approve the appointment and cancel the order that denied the approval of appointment.

“It is a matter of great significance that at one point in time, equity that existed in favour of one melts into total insignificance and paves the path of extinction with the passage of time,” the court said on March 31

The appellants, Sanjoy Guchhait and two others, claimed to have served the school continuously since 1993, before its upgradation to a 10-class high school in 1998.

Their legal battle began in 1999, leading to a series of orders. Notably, their claim for appointment approval was rejected by the Principal Secretary of the School Education Department on September 15, 2003.

Despite an inquiry report in 2012 suggesting they were still working at the institution, the appellants did not file the current petition until 2016, thirteen years after the 2003 rejection.

A Single Judge dismissed the petition in October 2025, a decision that was challenged in the present appeal.

Appearing for the petitioner, senior advocate Arabinda Chatterjee, along with Kakali Dutta and Priti Dutta, submitted that singe Judge erroneously rejected the petition on a technical plea because the appellants had not challenged the principal secretary’s September 15, 2003, order.

They added that it had failed to appreciate that the appellants did make a prayer in the petition for cancellation of the orders, directions given by the respondents denying approval of the appointment of the appellants.

Representing the state, assistant government pleader Supriyo Chattopadhyay and advocate Pinaki Bhattacharyya submitted that there was no contemporaneous challenge to the order of the principal secretary dated 15.09.2003, and the petition was filed about four years after an inquiry report was filed on 10.01.2012, responding to a mass petition of unapproved staff of the said school.

They argued that the regularisation cannot be reopened, more so when the appellants have attained the age of about 59, 67, and 64 years respectively as on date.