- (1.) Leave is granted in the Special Leave petitions.
(2.) In Food Corporation of India, Bombay & Ors. v. Transport & Dock Workers Union & Ors., 1999 (7) SCC 59, a two-Judge Bench of this Court, having noticed the conflict of opinion between different Benches including two three-Judge Benches of this Court on the interpretation of the expression appropriate Government in Sec. 2(1)(a) of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 (for short, the C.L.R.A. Act) and in Sec. 2(a) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (for short, the I. D. Act) and having regard to the importance of the question of automatic absorption of the contract labour in the establishment of the principal employer as a consequence of an abolition notification issued under Sec. 10(1) of the C.L.R.A. Act, referred these cases to a Larger Bench. The other cases were tagged with the said case as the same questions arise in them also. That is how these cases have come up before us.
(3.) To comprehend the controversy in these cases, it will suffice to refer to the facts in Civil Appeal Nos. 6009-10 of 2001 @ S.L.P. Nos. 12657-12658 of 1998 which are preferred from the judgment and order of the Calcutta High Court in W. P. No. 1773 of 1994 and F.M.A.T. No. 1460 of 1994 dated July 3, 1998. The appellants, a Central Government Company and its branch manager, are engaged in the manufacture and sale of various types of iron and steel materials in its plants located in various States of India. The business of the appellants includes import and export of several products and bye-products through Central Marketing Organisation, a Marketing unit of the appellant, having network of branches in different parts of India. The work of handling the goods in the stockyards of the appellants, was being entrusted to contractors after calling for tenders in that behalf. The Government of West Bengal issued notification dated July 15, 1989 under Sec. 10(1) of the C.L.R.A. Act (referred to in this judgment as the prohibition notification) prohibiting the employment of contract labour in four specified stockyards of the appellants at Calcutta. On the representation of the appellants, the Government of West Bengal kept in abeyance the said notification initially for a period of six months by notification dated August 28, 1989, and thereafter, extended that period from time to time. It appears that the State Government did not, however, extend the period beyond August 31, 1994.;