SECURITY GUARDS BOARD FOR GREATER BOMBAY AND THANE DISTT Vs. SECURITY AND PERSONNEL SERVICE PRIVATE LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) It appears that there were serious complaints about the service conditions of about 70,000 persons working as Security Guards in various factories and establishments in Greater Bombay and Thane Industrial Complex, the majority of whom were employed through about 250 Security Agencies operating in those areas. The complaints related not merely to insufficient remuneration paid to them by the agencies, but also to insecurity of service and other forms of exploitation. There was a sample survey conducted by the Government of Maharashtra to ascertain the extent of exploitation and to secure information regarding the service conditions of the Security Guards. The sample survey revealed that most of the agencies were not registered under the Shops and Establishments Act. There was only one registered union but that union accounted for membership of 2200 only. It was found that most of the Security Guards did not enjoy the benefit of any Provident Fund Scheme or any scheme of Gratuity. Most of them were not covered by the Employees' State Insurance Scheme and had no medical facilities. Leave facilities were inadequate. Rest intervals were not properly provided. Wages were low and only a few agencies paid overtime and bonus. Most of them did not also have either drinking water facility, canteen facility or transport facility. A very meagre percentage of Guards were provided with living quarters. It was recommended that it was absolutely necessary to prevent exploitation of the unprotected Security Guards and to provide them with better service conditions. Pursuant to the report of the committee which made the sample survey, the Government issued the Maharashtra Private Security Guards (Regulation of Employment and Welfare) Ordinance. The Ordinance was replaced by the Maharashtra Private Security Guards (Regulation of Employment and Welfare) Act, 1981. The vires of the Act were challenged in various writ petitions filed in the High Court of Bombay by Security Agencies. They were dismissed by the High Court and a petition for special leave to appeal under Art. 136 of the Constitution was dismissed by the Supreme Court on January 5, 1983. While dismissing the special leave petitions, the Supreme Court gave the following directions :

(2.) In the judgment of the learned single Judge who dismissed the writ petitions initially, the learned Judge had held that it was competent for security agencies to seek exemption from the operation of the provisions of the Act. As many as 139 security agencies applied to the Government under Sec. 23 of the Act for grant of exemption from the provisions of the Act. These applications were first screened by the Advisory Committee who recommended that exemption might be granted to 21 agencies. The cases of four other agencies which were not recommended by the Advisory Committee were again investigated by the Labour Commissioner who recommended that these four agencies also might be granted exemption from the provisions of the Act. On June 28, 1984, the Government of Maharashtra finally rejected all the applications for exemption filed by the various security agencies. Several security agencies thereupon filed writ petitions in the High Court of Bombay. The twenty five writ petitions filed by the twenty one agencies whose cases were recommended by the Advisory Committee and the four agencies whose cases were recommended by the Labour Commissioner were admitted by the High Court and the rest were dismissed in limine. The twenty-five writ petitions which were admitted were also finally dismissed on July 11, 1985 by a learned single Judge. On appeals preferred by the twenty-five security agencies, a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court directed the State Government to consider afresh the applications for exemption. An objection raised on behalf of the Security Guard Board and the Government of Maharashtra that security agencies could not seek exemption under Sec. 23 of the Act was overruled. The Bombay High Court took the view that the applications had been rejected as a result of the policy decision not to grant exemption to any security agency and that this was wrong. The High Court held that each application for exemption had to be considered on its own merits and so disposed of. Hence the direction to the Government to consider the applications afresh.

(3.) The Security Guard Board constituted under Sec. 6 of the Act has preferred these twenty-five appeals against the judgment of the Bombay High Court.