JABALPUR, India, Oct. 28 -- Madhya Pradesh High Court issued the following judgment/order on Sept. 26:

1. All the Writ Petitions and Appeals raise common question of law and have similar facts and as such all the petitions and appeals were taken up for analogous hearing and are being disposed of by a common judgment.

2. Petitioners and Appellants in their respective writ petitions and appeals are serving as Sainiks in Home Guards. They were appointed on different dates as Sainiks in Home Guards. The date of appointment of each of the petitioner and appellant is not relevant for the purposes of determining the controversy arising in these petitions and appeals.

3. Petitioners and Appellants have primarily impugned the orders whereby the Home Guards have been "called off" for a period of two months.

4. The "call off" orders are claimed to have been passed in the exercise of powers under Rule 27 (1) (c) of the Madhya Pradesh Home Guard Rules 2016 (hereinafter referred to as the said Rules).

5. The Appellants had filed their respective Writ Petitions impugning the respective orders whereby they were called off duty. Since there was no challenge to any statutory provision or rule, said Writ Petitions were listed before learned single judges of this court. Against the orders passed in the Said Petitions intra court writ appeals have been filed which have been listed before us.

6. In the Writ Petitions before us, apart from challenging the orders whereby the Sainiks in Home Guards were called off, there is a challenge to the validity of the statutory provisions inter alia Section 7(2) of the Madhya PradeshHome Guards Act, 1947 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) and Rule 27 (1) (c) of the Rules and that is the reason the Writ Petitions were also listed before the Division Bench.

7. It is contended on behalf of the Petitioners/Appellants (hereinafter collectively referred to as the Petitioners), that the Sainiks in Home Guards of Madhya Pradesh perform the same functions and duties which the constables of Regular Police Establishment perform but they are denied similar benefits.

8. It is contended that the Homeguard Sainik Evam Pariwar Kalyan Sangh and several Home Guard Sainiksfiled Writ Petitions inter alia W.P. No. 10000/2010 (titled Homeguard Sainik Evam Pariwar Kalyan Sangh versus State of Madhya Pradesh) seeking a direction for declaring the post of Sainiks of Home Guards as a Civil Post and for grant of all consequential benefits and to treat them at par with the whole time staff of Home Guards. They also sought a direction to the respondents to frame rules regarding their service conditions including benefit of salary, allowances, increments, pay scale, leave, provident fund, gratuity etc. at par with the Home Guards appointed on substantive post.

*Rest of the document can be viewed at: (https://mphc.gov.in/upload/jabalpur/MPHCJB/2024/WP/119/WP_119_2024_FinalOrder_26-09-2025.pdf)

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