WORKMEN OF THE FOOD CORPORATION OF INDIA Vs. FOOD CORPORATION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Vacillation on the part of a public sector undertaking has pushed this trivial dispute to the Apex Court adding to the anxiety and misery on the part of lowest grade workmen and wasteful expenditure on futile litigation.

(2.) Food Corporation of India ('Corporation' for short) was set up under an Act of Parliament being the Food Corporations Act, 1964 ('Act' for short) to provide, amongst other, for the establishment of Food Corporations for the purpose of trading in foodgrains and other foodstuffs and for matters connected therewith and incidental thereto. For performance of the functions statutorily prescribed under S. 13 of the Act namely, to undertake the purchase, storage, movement, transport, distribution and sale of foodgrains; and other foodstuffs, the Corporation has to set up godowns / depots and other storage facilities and to engage labour for handling foodgrains at the godowns or in transit. The Corporation adopted different methods at different places for employing labour for handling foodgranis. One such depot has been set up by the Corporation at Siliguri in West Bengal State. Number of workmen designated as handling Mazdoor were employed at Siliguri Depot. At the relevant time, 464 workmen were attached to this depot. It appears initially a contractor was engaged by the Corporation for handling storage and transit of foodgrains at Siliguri Depot. Subsequently, by negotiations and settlements, the contract system was abolished and the workmen were directly paid the wages, presumably at piece rate for the service rendered by them by the Corporation. A further attempt was made to bring about a basic change in the system by reinducting the intermediary contractor. This attempt to change the status of the workmen from being workmen of the Corporation to becoming the labour employed by the contractor was resisted by Food Corporation of India Workers' Union-appellant herein - ('Union' for short) and it led to negotiations between the Corporation and the Union resulting in a settlement as evidenced by Union's letter dated Jan 18, 1973. Two terms of the settlement may be noticed here. They read as under:

(3.) An industrial dispute in this behalf raised by the Union was referred by the Central Government to the Central Government Industrial Tribunal, Calcutta under S. 10 of the I.D. Act for adjudication. The reference was in the following terms: