CROMPTON ENGINEERING CO MADRAS PRIVATE LIMITED Vs. ADDITIONAL LABOUR COURT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition to quash the award of the Labour Court, Madras, dated 5th December, 1970, made in Industrial Dispute No. 155 of 1968, Most of the facts are not in controversy.

(2.) THE petitioner, the Crompton Engineering Company (Madras) Private Ltd. , had employed the respondents 2 to 4 herein temporarily for a specific period or in respect of a particular contract work undertaken by the petitioner. The three persons had been employed for several such periods and for several such contracts. Exhibits M 1 and M 4 which are the orders of appointment in respect of W. W. 1 and W. W. 3 show that they were appointed in respect of the particular contract or for particular period and their appointments were purely temporary and came to an end as soon as the period or the job was over. The respondents 2 to 4 herein raised an industrial dispute on the allegation that they were not given any work with effect from a particular date. That dispute was referred for adjudication by the Government in G. O. R. No. 2578 dated 22nd November, 1968. The points of reference were: Whether, the non-employment of Thiruvalargal D. Dhansingh, P. K. Gopal Filial and A, Divyanathan was justified; if not, to what relief they are entitled ? To compute the relief, if any awarded, in terms of money, if it can be so computed. The petitioner contended before the Labour Court that the petitioner has a contract department in which it employed on permanent basis wiremen, assistant wiremen, super, visors and helpers, who are the principal type of employees in the contracts department, and as and when the company takes extra work or for completing job quickly ahead of the schedule, it used to employ casual workers to help the department workers ; the respondents 2 to 4 herein were all employed purely on casual basis and daily-rated, and the contract of service was for the day only ; no payment was made for Sundays or other holidays ; while the permanent employees had the benefit of a graded scale of basic wages and separate dearness allowance, respondents 2 to 4 were purely casual employees and were paid only on consolidated basis ; they were not entitled to any leave or other privileges available to permanent workers; in short, the service conditions of respondents 2 to 4 varied widely with those of the permanent employees themselves in that very department ; even during the period they were taken on casual employment, there have been a number of occasions when there has been break in the period of employment; they had not worked fully during the entire week on a number of occasions.

(3.) THE Labour Court has proceeded on the basis that there was some difficulty in holding that respondents 2 to 4 herein were permanent employees of the company, and the company had separate muster rolls for permanent labourers and the benefits that are available to the permanent labourers were not given to these workmen. It is not disputed that respondents 2 to 4 herein were paid only daily Tates of wages and they were paid at the end of the week on Saturdays, and they were paid only on the days when they had worked, and they were not entitled to wages on days on which they did not work and they were not entitled to any holidays. Notwithstanding these facts, the Labour Court simply on the basis of judgment of this Court in Elumalai v. Simplex Concrete Piles (India) Ltd. (1969) 37 F. J. R. 396. came to the conclusion that even casual labourers are included in the definition of "workmen" in Section 2 (s) of the Industrial Disputes Act, and, therefore, the respondents 2 to 4 herein were entitled to reinstatement. In my opinion the Labour Court committed an error in coming to this conclusion. In the decision referred to above, the only question that was considered by this Court was whether a casual worker will come within the expression ''workman" occurring in Section 2 (s) of the Industrial Disputes Act. In that case, the Labour Court held that the casual labourers were not workmen a. nd on that basis, the claim petition filed by the casual labourers was dismissed. When the matter came up before this Court, this Court held that the definition of the term "workman" found in Section 2 (s) of the Act would include a casual worker also, and on this finding remanded the matter back to the Labour Court for fresh consideration. However, while doing so, this Court clearly pointed out that this Court was not deciding anything as to whether the petitioner therein was entitled to any relief under any of the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act or not, and all that the Court decided was that the petitioner therein was a workman within the scope of the definition of the word in Section 2 (s)of the Act.