DEJAPADA DAS Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 'Survival after death' is the expression that aptly describes these writ petitions relating to coal mining by private agencies long after a prohibitory legislation and an order by this Court repelling the challenges to the vires of that Act. Parliament by the Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Amendment Act, 1976 (Act No. LXVII of 1976) (for short, the 1976 Act) totally prohibited all mining of coal save by instrumentalities set out in S. 3, sub-sec. (3) which we may excerpt here:

(2.) This broad spectrum ban in law arrested the extraction of coal and was naturally assailed as ultra vires by the management's themselves in writ petitions under Art. 32. A bench of seven Judges of this Court heard erudite and elaborate arguments, at the end of which the writ petitions were dismissed. But it is not unusual for many litigants 'even though vanquished, to argue still'. Here, however, the challenge and challenger are of different colour. For, the petitioners before us claim to be workmen who are thrown out of employment on account of the 1976 Act and lament in this Court that they are discriminated against and on that score the law is violative of Art. 14 of the Constitution. The plea put forward is that in regard to nationalised coal mines the workmen are taken care of and their benefits assured, while in regard to coal mines where mining is prohibited by S. 3 (3) of the 1976 Act the workmen are left in the cold. This is stated to be discrimination between workman and workman, thus contravening the mandate of equality before the law. May be, the writ missiles of the managements proved damp squibs but the workers undaunted by that rebuff, want to try a new weapon of ultra vires. The coal will go to the employers and the wages to the workers.

(3.) The Union of India resists this relief and contends that the writ petitioners are mere reincarnations of the old managements which have fought and lost and are masquerading; as workmen so as to facilitate a second challenge. The State asserts that clandestine coal mining mafia having been stopped, those racketeers are playing the maricha game through bogus workers in tears. Without going into the merits of this averment we may state that every other conceivable objection to the validity of the 1976 Act and other sister enactments had been urged in vain before the seven judges' bench. Now the alleged workmen are complaining of discriminatory denial of benefits to one class of workers. The Union of India counters this plea as factually a ruse for clandestine mining operations by managements and legally a second battle after the legal Waterloo hoping against hope that there is nothing to lose in a gamble. Even if a spell of stay were got the gain will outweigh possible losses in litigation. Indeed, the State's contention is that considerable losses to Government and traumatic consequences on the nation are being daily inflicted by such clandestine operations. The whole mischief contemplated by the 1976 Act is being continued under the guise of invalidity of the legislation and alternatively, by going to Court and getting receivers appointed so that a legal colour is imparted to lawless depredations.