WYNAD COFFEE GROWERS ASSOCIATION Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SOME of the provisions in Chapter IA of the Kerala Plantation Labour Rules are challenged in these batch of writ petitions by owners/ Associations of Plantations.

(2.) THE Plantations Labour Act, 1951 (Central Act 69 of 1951) came into force on 1st April, 1954 and was extended to the whole of India , except the State of Jammu and Kashmir . This Act is meant 'to provide for the welfare of labour, and to regulate the conditions of work, in plantations'. THE Act applied to the following plantations, that is to say " (a) To any land used or intended to be used for growing tea, coffee, rubber, (cinchona or cardamom) which admeasures (5 hectares) or more and in which (fifteen) or more persons are employed or were employed on any day of the preceding twelve months; (b) To any land used or intended to be used for growing any other plant, which admeasures (5 hectares) or more and in which (fifteen)or more persons are employed or were employed on any day of the preceding twelve months, if, after obtaining the approval of the Central Government, the state Government, by notification, in the Official Gazette, so directs,"

(3.) THE general power to make rules is contained in S. 43 of the Act.