V.S. Sirpurkar, J. - (1.) This judgment will dispose of SLP (Civil) No. 1982 of 2007, SLP (Civil) No. 3624 of 2007, SLP (Civil).... CC No. 4065 of 2007, SLP (Civil).... CC No. 4046 of 2007, SLP (Civil) Nos. 13462-13463 of 2007, SLP (Civil) No. 20206 of 2007, and SLP (Civil) No. 9600 of 2008.
(2.) Leave granted in SLP (Civil) No. 1982 of 2007, SLP (Civil) No. 3624 of 2007, SLP (Civil) Nos. 13462-13463 of 2007, SLP (Civil) No. 20206 of 2007, and SLP (Civil) No. 9600 of 2008
(3.) Two concurrent judgments of the Full Bench of the Bombay High Court, one written by Hon'ble J.N. Patel and Hon'ble Roshan Dalvi, JJ. and a separate but concurrent judgment authored by Hon'ble Deshmukh, J. have fallen for consideration. The reference to Full Bench was occasioned on account of the two Learned Judges of the Bombay High Court, principally not agreeing with another Division Bench Judgment reported in the case of Century Textiles & Industries Ltd. v. State of Maharashtra 2000 II CLR 279 in its interpretation of the term "unprotected worker" provided by Section 2(11) of the Maharashtra Mathadi, Hamal and other Manual Workers (Regulation of Employment and Welfare) Act, 1969 (hereinafter referred to as 'Mathadi Act') and term "worker" provided by Section 2(12) of the Mathadi Act. The referring Bench was of the opinion that the interpretation given to those two terms in the decision in Century Textiles & Industries Ltd. v. State of Maharashtra (cited supra) was in conflict with the statutory provisions enacted by the Legislature in the said Mathadi Act. The question referred to the Full Bench was as under: In view of the statutory definition of the expression "unprotected worker" in Section 2(11) of the Maharashtra Mathadi, Hamal and other Manual Workers (Regulation of Employment and Welfare) Act, 1969 is the interpretation placed by the Division Bench in Century Textiles & Industries Ltd. v. State of Maharashtra 2000 II CLR 279 on the aforesaid expression that it is only casually engaged workers who come within the purview of the Act, correct and proper In the two aforementioned judgments of the Bombay High Court, the Learned Judges, writing the majority judgment, recorded as under: For the aforesaid reasons, we find that the interpretation placed by the Division Bench in Century Textile and Industries Ltd. and OTHERS v. State of Maharashtra and OTHERS 2000 II CLR 270 on the definition of the words "unprotected worker" and "worker" for the purpose of applicability to Mathadi Act, 1969 that it is only the casual workmen who come within the purview of the Act, is not correct and proper and it is erroneous which deserves to be ignored and is overruled. The Learned Single Judge (Hon'ble Deshmukh, J.) gave his final verdict in the following words: To conclude, therefore, to my mind it is clear that within the meaning of Section 2(11) of the Act "unprotected worker" means every manual worker who is engaged or to be engaged in any scheduled employment, irrespective of whether he is protected by other labour legislations or not and "unprotected workers" within the meaning of the Act are definitely not only those manual workers who are casually engaged. ;