RAJEEV Vs. DISTRICT LABOUR OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A very interesting and very important question of law, in the present industrial climate in the State, arises in this case. The question is whether for registration under Rule 26A of the Kerala Headload Workers Rules, it is necessary that the persons seeking registration should be headload workers already working under an employer who seeks to employ them as his permanent attached headload workers. The said question of law arises in the following factual matrix:

(2.) The Petitioner is an employer running an establishment as defined under Section 2(j) of the Kerala Headload Workers Act. In the course of his business he has to get loading and unloading work also done in his establishment. The Petitioner started the business in the year 2005. Initially he employed his own permanent registered headload workers, who were three in number. According to the Petitioner, as time passed, the registered workers voluntarily left the employment of the Petitioner due to various personal reasons and, therefore, he engaged Respondents 3 and 4 to do headload work, who filed Ext.P-4 applications for registration under Rule 26A of the Kerala Headload Workers Rules, before the 2nd Respondent. Since there was delay in considering the said applications for registration, the Petitioner and the workers obtained an order from this Court directing the 2nd Respondent to pass orders on those applications expeditiously. Pursuant to the said direction, the 2nd Respondent considered Ext.P-4 applications filed by Respondents 3 and 4 and passed Ext.P-7 order, rejecting the applications, on the ground that the Petitioner has not kept registers and records of headload workers, which he is liable to maintain under Rule 27 of the Kerala Headload Workers Rules. Petitioner filed an appeal before the first Respondent against that order rejecting the applications of Respondents 3 and 4 for registration and the first Respondent by Ext.P-9 order confirmed Ext.P-7 order on the same ground. The Petitioner is challenging Ext.P-7 and P-9 orders in this writ petition.

(3.) Petitioner's contention is that the Respondents 3 and 4 have a fundamental right to do headload work with an employer willing to employ them and denial of registration under Rule 26A of the Kerala Headload Workers Rules, which is a mandatory condition for being engaged as headload workers under Clause 6 of the Kerala Headload Workers (Regulation of Employment and Welfare) Scheme, 1983 in so far as the area where the Petitioner's establishment is situated is a scheme covered area amounts to violation of their fundamental right to carry on a profession of their choice and the right of the Petitioner to employ his own permanent attached headload workers, which right is recognised under the Kerala Headload Workers Act, as laid down in the decision of the Full Bench of this Court in Raghavan v. Superintendent of Police,1998 2 KerLT 732. The Petitioner therefore seeks the following reliefs: