- (1.) THE Schedule appended to this Order enumerates writ petitions which, according to learned counsel appearing for the respective parties, involve common question of law and facts as involved in this writ petition. Accordingly, the judgment/order passed in this writ petition shall as well govern and decide those writ petitions also and the Schedule shall form part of this order.
(2.) AS per the allegations made in the writ petition, the petitioner is A-Class contractor of the Rajasthan Housing Board, Jodhpur. The petitioner has contracts with Respondents No. 3 to 6 for construction of residential houses in different schemes of the respondents. For the aforesaid construction purpose, the petitioner engages various labourers like masons, carpenters, plumbers, etc. daily on the contract basis or daily-wages basis and there is no permanent labour with the petitioner. The labourers engaged are as per the requirement of the work every day. The carpenters, plumbers, masons, etc. are engaged on contract basis also and the contractors bring their own labour per day as per requirement and the petitioner has no permanent labour-force. In the field of building-construction work there are many types and many stages of the work which need different jobs and different kinds of labour for day to day work as the construction goes on. For digging of mud there are different kinds of labourers, for plastering, flooring, painting, etc. they need different kinds of labourers. Likewise for sanitation and pipe-fitting there are different kinds of labourers who have their own skill and specialisation in the respective field. Some of the labourers available to the contractors perform the work on the measurement basis instead of daily-wages basis. The labourers who come on work at the site on a particular day, there is no certainty that they will necessarily come on the job the next day. There are many subcontractors available in different fields of construction. They also engage labour on daily-wages basis. It is further alleged that the petitioner does not have a single regular labourer/employee and it engages as per its requirement of the work.
(3.) THE petitioner received a letter from the respondents whereby, some information was asked for from the petitioner regarding labour engaged by it. The petitioner submitted reply that it does not engage any permanent labourers and the number of casual labour does not exceed 20. It has also informed the respondents that the petitioner and the likes have All-India union and the members of the union have approached the Central Government under Section 19 (a) of the Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 (in short, to find mention hereinafter 'the Act of 1952') for removal of the difficulties as to whether the workers employed at the work-sites of the establishment engaged in the building-construction industry are employees as per the definition given in Section 2 of the Act of 1952. The Central Government has given a finding in favour of the members of the union. But, the respondents did not pay any attention to the submission made by the petitioner and issued letter stating that in the absence of the information regarding employees 6% deduction from the bills of the contractors shall be made for the month of October, 1993. Aggrieved by the aforesaid direction/order, some of the petitioners challenged the order by filing various writ petitions before the Rajasthan High Court. During the pendency of the writ petitions, the respondent Housing Board had issued a letter that the Housing Board will not make any deduction on account of Provident Fund from the bills of the contractors and the sum already deducted will be refunded to the contractors. On the aforesaid basis, the Writ petitions were disposed of by the High Court as having become infructuous.;