NAJEEMA BEEVI Vs. PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The same question arises in all these cases and that is whether an employee of the Kerala Public Service Commission could claim that be is a workman entitled to the benefits of the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act. We bad occasion to consider the scope of the term 'workman' in the context of claim by temporary employees appointed under R.9(a) of the Kerala State and Subordinate Services Rules, 1958 that they are workmen under the Industrial Disputes Act and therefore their services should not be terminated except in accordance with Chapter V-A of the Act. We are referring to the decision in Umayommal v. State of Kerala ( 1982 KLT 829 (FB)). The Full Bench said in that case thus:

(2.) Summarising the decisions on the question the Full Bench had said in the passage extracted earlier that an establishment can be taken out of the pale of the industry only if it exercises inalienable governmental functions.

(3.) Part XIV of the Constitution deals with services under the Union and the States. Chap.2 of this Part relates to Public Service Commissions. Art.315(1) of the Constitution makes it obligatory that the Union and each State must have a Public Service Commission. It is an essential State organ performing functions envisaged in the various articles in Chap.2 of Part XIV. Particular mention may be made of Art.320 of the Constitution which deals specifically with the functions of the Public Service Commissions. These functions are envisaged for the Commissions inter alia in order to secure proper selection for recruitment to the services of the States or the Union. The guarantees envisaged in Part III of the Constitution particularly in matters relating to service would be rendered illusory unless they are backed by a proper machinery which ensures to the citizen that in the matter of recruitment to services there is a body which gives opportunities for a proper selection so that candidates who seek recruitment are given just and fair treatment. With this end in view the Public Service Commission is conceived as a high power body, the members of which suffer disabilities in the matter of holding offices on ceasing to be Public Service Commission members, enjoy certain amount of security of tenure by reason of Art.317 of the Constitution and are beyond the purview of control by the Executive in the matter of their services. Thus it is an independent functionary which secures to the citizens the benefit of the guarantees envisaged in Art.14 and 16. It is true that under the proviso to Art.320(3) of the Constitution the President and the Governor are empowered to make regulations specifying matters in which either generally or in any particular class of case or in particular circumstances it shall not be necessary for the Public Service Commission to be consulted. In other words it is open to the Governor or the President to exclude, the operation of the Public Service Commission in particular circumstances or particular cases. That is not to say that the functions of the Public Service Commission can be substituted by another functionary by any regulation made by the Governor. The proviso cannot operate so as to nullify the substantive part of the article. Despite the proviso it is the Public Service Commission that operates in matters envisaged in Chap.2 of Part XIV.