Altamas Kabir, J. - (1.) The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd., (hereinafter referred to as 'the O.N.G.C.') is a public sector undertaking which carries out geological and geophysical surveys for the exploration of petroleum. Such work is seasonal and is confined to the period between November each year and the months of April or May of the following year. Every year, at the commencement of the new season, the O.N.G.C. starts recruiting casual/contingent/temporary workmen for specified periods and their services are terminated at the end of the field season. Having regard to the nature of the work involved, such practice is said to have been in existence from 1956 when the O.N.G.C. was incorporated.
(2.) With the increase in the workforce over the years, the aforesaid practice came to be questioned by the Engineering Mazdoor Sangh, the respondent herein, on behalf of its members who had been employed as such casual/contingent or temporary workmen and an industrial dispute was raised in the form of a demand for regularization of such workmen. The dispute was ultimately referred by the Government of India to the Industrial Tribunal (Central) at Vadodara by way of Reference (ITC) No. 6 of 1991 to decide whether the demand of the Respondent-Sangh for regularisation of such employees and for other consequential benefits, was justified and if the answer to the said question was yes, to what relief would the workmen be entitled.
(3.) The aforesaid Reference was answered in favour of the workmen though the Tribunal made it clear that the Reference was to be restricted to those workmen whose names appeared in the Schedule to the affidavit filed by the O.N.G.C. The Tribunal directed the O.N.G.C. to consider the names of those workmen in the same descending order in which they were mentioned in the Schedule as and when vacancies occurred and to regularize them provided they satisfied the prescribed educational qualifications and had also put in 240 days of work in a year. The O.N.G.C. was also directed to give such workmen who were eligible, age relaxation of one year for every completed 240 days of work in a year.;