Home guards get honorarium, not wages, not entitled to gratuity: Punjab & Hryana high court

Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana high court clarified on Monday that home guard volunteers were not paid wages, but they instead received daily allowances in the form of honorarium. The court held that therefore, they cannot be treated as employees as envisaged under the 1972 Act to claim gratuity.
Referring to a judgment passed by the high court in a case titled ‘Nirmala Devi and Others versus Director, Civil Defence, Home Guards, Punjab, Chandigarh, and Others', the court reiterated that the home guard establishment is a source of employment and is a volunteer body where citizens voluntarily offer services for the benefit of society. Anyone who is a professional, a govt servant, a person carrying any trade or occupation, an industrial worker, a university student, etc., who can spare time for the benefit of the community, can be a member of the establishment.
After considering the 1947 Act as well as the 1963 Rules, a finding was recorded in that case that the home guard organisation is a voluntary organisation, and home guards are not entitled to benefits admissible to regular employees or the consequential benefits claimed thereof.
Justice Harsimran Singh Sethi issued these orders while hearing a bunch of petitions. The main issue before the court was whether a member of the home guard establishment, who is a volunteer and not an employee of the state, could seek the benefit of gratuity under the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972.
In the present batch of writ petitions, home guard volunteers raised the grievance that they should be treated as "employees" of the home guard establishment and are entitled to gratuity as envisaged under the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972. Some petitioners approached the court directly for the same benefit granted to the respondents, home guard volunteers, by authorities in 2020 and 2021.
After hearing all parties, Justice Puri held that in the absence of any wages being paid to the members of the home guard establishment, the benefit granted by the authorities under the Payment of Gratuity Act, via impugned orders dated Feb 28, 2020, and August 24, 2021, cannot be sustained in the eyes of the law and are accordingly set aside.