RAJINDER LAL Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All these writ petitions are filed by contract workers who are engaged by different contractors and all these contractors are/were awarded work by CPWD. All these contract workers in these writ petitions are claiming regular appointment/direct absorption by CPWD as their principle employer. It is not necessary to state facts in each case for the purpose of disposing of these writ petitions. It would be sufficient to mention that these contract workers have been working for varying periods which is as less as 1-2 years and as long as 18-20 years in certain cases. Admittedly every contract worker has worked for more than 240 days. Further, admittedly, no notification has been issued by the "appropriate Government" under Section 10 of the Contract Labour Regulation and Abolition Act, (hereinafter referred to as the Act, for short) for abolishing the contract labour system in the CPWD in respect of the nature of work being undertaken by these contract workers. These writ petitions are filed at a stage when in most of these cases request was made to the "appropriate Government" for constitution of the Board to undertake the task of ascertaining whether the process, operation, for the work being carried on by the contract labour needs abolition.

(2.) It has been the contention of the petitioners that the work being undertaken is of perennial nature and they have been doing this work for long time. It is further contended that the contract system is a camouflage and needs abolition and therefore in these eases the "appropriate Government", which is the Central Government in the instant cases, should issue notification under Section 10 of the Ad prohibiting employment of contract labour in the process, operation and the work carried on by these contract workers in the establishment of CPWD through contractors. All these writ petitions were heard at length then M/Ms. V. Shekhar, Naresh Kausllik, Shankar Divate, Manas Panigrahi argued on behalf of the petitioners in different writ petitions. Mr. P. Chandramouly, National President, National Forum for Forces Fighting Corruption and Injustice had argued in person in support of claim in Civil Writ Petition No. 1159 of 1999. Dr. Abishek Singhvi, Senior Advocate with Mr. Sandip Aggarwal argued for the respondent-CPWD. After the arguments were heard and judgment was reserved, before the judgment could be pronounced certain subsequent development look place. Some more matters relating to CPWD when listed for hearing, Mr. S.B. Jaisinghani, learned Additional Solicitor General, appeared on behalf of the CPWD alongwith Mr. Jayant Bhushani, Mr. A.K. Bhardwaj and Ms. Kumud L. Das and .submitted that the "appropriate Government" was considering constitution of a Committee to go into the question of abolition of contract labour and requested that judgment in these matters he not pronounced at that stage. This second batch of writ petitions were adjourned from time to time arid ultimately on 20th April, 2000, Resolution dated 30th March, 2000 was produced which was issued by Government of India under Section 5 of liny Act whereby Central Advisory Contract Labour Board (hereinafter referred to as the Board, for short) constituted a Committee to go into the question of abolition of contract labour deployed in different offices/establishments by the CPWD. In the schedule annexed to the above Resolution brief submissions were made by counsel for both the parties after this Resolution and that batch of writ petitions were also reserved for delivering a common judgment. At the time of arguments on the, first batch of writ petitions learned counsel for the petitioners formulated the following propositions:- 1. When the "appropriate Government" is not issuing notification under Section 10 of the Act for abolishing contract labour in respect of the work being performed by the petitioners, this Court should give necessary directions to the "appropriate Government" to issue such notification. It was submitted thai there was sufficient material placed on record and hardly any disputed questions of fact were involved in view of the aforesaid material and taking cognizance thereof this Court could give necessary directions in exercise of its powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. 2. It was argued in the alternative that in case the Court felt that there was no sufficient material before the Court or because of the disputes raised by the respondent with regard to the sufficiency or admissibility of such material/evidence on record, this Court under Article 226 had ample power to refer the matter to the Board with the directions to undertake necessary exercise and submit report as to whether contract labour deployed in different offices/establishments of CPWD needed abolition and after calling for the said report appropriate writ be issued by the Court itself for abolition of the contract system in CPWD.

(3.) If the Court did not want to accept any of the alternatives suggested above and was of the opinion that the matter is to be gone into by the Board which is the expert body and ultimately it is the "appropriate Government" which has to decide whether contract labour system needs to be abolished or not, mandamus/direction be issued to the "appropriate Government" to constitute a Committee to go into this question and thereafter in consultation with the Board, Govt. shall decide as to whether notification under Section 10 of the Act is to he passed or not. However, if this course of action is to be adopted, the services of the petitioners/contract workers on whose behalf these petitions are filed be protected in the meantime and slay granted in these cases be continued till the completion of exercise by the Central Government in terms of the provisions of Section 10 of the Act.