Nishita Mhatre, J. - (1.) The question raised in this appeal is whether employees who have been working satisfactorily for more than 30 years in a canteen which provides food for the patients and staff of an institution run by the Union of India are entitled to absorption and regularisation in service.
(2.) The learned Single Judge of this Court has held that the respondent employees (hereinafter referred to as employees) are entitled to be regularised in service with the National Institute for Orthopedically Handicapped (hereinafter referred to as the Institute). Aggrieved by that decision of the learned Single Judge, the Institute has preferred the present appeal through its Director and other Officers. Facts
(3.) All the employees are working as staff in the staff canteen of the Institute at Bonhooghly, Kolkata for the last 30 years. While respondent employee No. 1 is a graduate and has been working from 1987, the other employees are cooks, kitchen attendants, stewards and washer boys. The canteen was established and is maintained and managed by the Institute which is run by the Government of India. It provides service not only to the members of the staff of the Institute but also to the indoor patients. The employees are paid salary as casual workers with 70% of their salary being paid by the Institute while the remaining 30% is paid from the profit earned by the canteen. The employees are not paid a regular scale of pay as other Group D staff of the Institute. On the basis of their contention that they are entitled to be treated as regular employees of the Institute, the employees had filed WP No. 16705(W) of 1997 claiming that they should be treated as regular employees of the Institute. The writ petition was disposed of on 5th November, 1997 directing the Institute to consider the case of the employees in the light of the decision of the Supreme Court in M.M.R. Khan and Ors. Vs. Union of India and Ors., 1990 Supp1 SCC 191 within one month. Accordingly, a representation was submitted by the employees was disposed of by an order dated 22nd January, 1998. The Director of the Institute observed that though there was enough material to indicate that the employees had been working in the canteen for a long period of time, the impediment in their way for absorption as employees of the Institute was that posts were not sanctioned and could not be created for them by the Institute. It was also noted that the Institute had already taken up the matter with the Government of India, Ministry of Welfare about the absorption/extension of regular service benefits to the employees.;