Saumitra Dayal Singh, J. - (1.) This writ petition has been filed by the petitioners, seeking for the following relief: "(i) issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus directing the respondents to pay Rs. 15,750/- per month in place of Rs. 7,952/- per month to the petitioners working on Group 'D' post (Casual Labour), and Rs. 17,393/- per month in place of Rs. 9,719/- per month to the petitioners working on Group 'C' post (Casual Clerk) in view of the law laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the matter of State of Punjab Vs. Jagjit Singh and others till their services are regularized in terms of judgement rendered in the Writ Petition No. 7621 (S/S) of 2008 (Ram Naresh and others Vs. State of U.P. and others); (ii) issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus directing the respondent no. 2/3 to forthwith take decision in respect of payment of 'equal pay for equal work' in terms of the judgement of the Hon'ble Supreme Court dated 26.10.2016 in Civil Appeal No. 213 of 2013 (State of Punjab Vs. Jagjit Singh and others) which has also been agreed in principle in the joint meeting of the management and the employees' union held on 24.08.2016 (Annexure No. 7 to this writ petition); (iii) issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus directing the respondents to forthwith release the payment of bonus for the financial years 2014-15 and 2015-16 to the petitioners and all other employees of the Corporation."
(2.) Briefly, the facts giving rise to the present petition are that the respondents - U.P. State Warehousing Corporation (hereinafter referred to as the corporation), is a corporation established under the Warehousing Corporation Act, 1962 (hereinafter referred as to 'the Act'). The petitioners claim to have been engaged and working in the respondent corporation as 'monthly fixed emoluments paid' employees. Petitioner no.1 Shadab Beg claims to have been engaged on 24.06.2001 as a casual employee; petitioner no.2 Sharif Ahmad claims to have been engaged on 31.05.2001 as a casual clerk and; petitioner no.3 Jitendra Kumar Shukla also claims to have been engaged on 26.04.2001 as a casual clerk. The petitioners claim they have been working on the aforesaid positions continuously and that though there are substantive vacancies on those posts in the corporation, the petitioners are neither being regularised nor are they being paid the minimum of wages.
(3.) In this background, the petitioners first raised a claim to be regularized. In that respect, they relied on certain resolutions passed by the board of directors of the corporation to regularize all casual employees. An approval was also sought from the state government (that has a shareholding in the corporation). However, such approval was not granted. Subsequently, contrary to the earlier resolution of the board of directors of the corporation, it's then Managing Director sought to fill up the vacancies through direct recruitment. This gave rise to a challenge in Writ Petition No. 7621 (S/S) No. 2008 which came to be allowed by the judgment of a learned single judge of this court dated 18.04.2011, with the following observations: "I am of the considered view that once the Board of Directors took a decision to regularize the petitioners by following the earlier practice prevailing in the department, there was no need to seek approval of Government, even if it sought so, it was only empty formality, the denial of which has no adversely affect upon the decision of the Board. Therefore, I hereby quash the order dated 17th of May, 2009, issued by the State Government as well as the Advertisement No. 3 dated 13th of November, 2008 with liberty to the Board of Directors to implement its own decisions for regularization of the petitioners within a reasonable time.";