MANZOOR Vs. DISTRICT LABOUR OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioners are challenging the rejection of applications of petitioners 2 to 4 for registration as headload workers. First petitioner is the employer in whose establishment petitioners 2 to 4 claim to have worked as headload workers. By Ext.P5 order, the second respondent rejected Ext.P2, Ext.P3 and Ext.P4 applications filed by petitioners 2 to 4 to be registered as headload workers. The appeal filed against the order of rejection was dismissed by Ext.P9. Apart from seeking to quash the impugned orders, petitioners have also sought for a direction to register petitioners 2 to 4 as headload workers and for issuance of identity cards to them.

(2.) First petitioner is the proprietor of a cashew packing unit at Kollam. The said establishment claimed to have employed permanent workers to carry out all work, including loading and unloading operations. Petitioners contend that when strangers started obstructing the work of loading and unloading in the first petitioner's establishment, a writ petition was filed as W.P.(C) No. 41262 of 2017 and an interim order of police protection was obtained on 21.12.2017. Thereafter, with effect from 01.01.2018, the area where the first petitioner's establishment was situated was brought under the Kerala Headload Workers (Regulation of Employment and Welfare) Scheme, 1983 (for short 'the Scheme') and hence by judgment dated 06.03.2018, this Court refused to continue the police protection and disposed of the writ petition after reserving the liberty of the petitioners to seek registration of their own workers under Rule 26A of the Kerala Headload Workers Rules, 1981 (for short 'the Rules').

(3.) Subsequently, petitioners 2 to 4 applied for registration as headload workers as per Ext.P2, Ext.P3 and Ext.P4. By Ext.P5 order, their applications were rejected by the second respondent after observing that the workers are carrying out the work of sorting and packing and that they cannot be registered as headload workers. It was also observed that since the first petitioner did not have permanent headload workers, he can utilize the services of the registered headload workers of the area.