- (1.) W.P. No. 37547 of 2005 is filed by the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited [for short, 'HPCL'], a Public Sector Undertaking, against the Award dated 14.3.2005 passed by the Central Government Industrial Tribunal " cum " Labour Court, Chennai [for short, 'CGIT'] in I.D. No. 311 of 2004 in granting relief of regularisation to the respondents 3 to 10 from the date of their alleged retrenchment with all attendant benefits including backwages quantified at 50%.
(2.) W.P. No. 12772 of 2006 is filed by eight workmen challenging the very same Award dated 14.3.2005 as well as the order dated 19.9.2005 made in I.A. No. 239 of 2005 and seeks for regularisation of their service from the date of completion of 480 days of service of their service, which was denied by the CGIT. The writ petition filed by the Management of the HPCL was admitted on 21.11.2005 and an interim stay was granted on the same day. Subsequently, when the workmen filed a petition for vacating the stay, this Court, vide order dated 26.4.2006, directed the HPCL to pay Rs.6175/- to each of the workmen every month starting from October 2005 and that the arrears was to be made within a period of four weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of that order and if the workmen are not restored to duty on or before 15.5.2006, the HPCL was further directed to continue to pay monthly salaries in terms of Section 17B of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 [for short, 'I.D. Act']. In view of the interconnectivity between these two writ petitions, the matters were taken up together and a common order is being passed.
(3.) HEARD the arguments of Mr. G. Masilamani, learned Advocate General appearing for M/s King and Patridge, representing the HPCL and Mr. K.V. Ananthakrushnan, learned counsel appearing for the workmen and perused the records. For the sake of convenience, the Management is referred to as 'HPCL' and the eight individual workmen are referred to as the 'workmen'. It is the case of the workmen that they were engaged for cleaning toilets, house keeping, sweeping, maintaining the Lunch Room and bringing the lunch and tiffin to their offices at Egmore and Meenambakkam in Chennai and they have been working since the year 1989 in the case of four persons, in the case of one Vadivelu since 1985, in the case of one P.S. Iudayaraj since 1987, in the case of one A. Rajkumar since 1992 and in the case of one S. Egambaram since 1997.;