BLUE STAR LTD Vs. COMMISSISONER OF LABOUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution, the petitioner, an employer-company, has prayed to quash the order dated 31.3.1995 of the Commissioner of Labour, the respondent No.1, whereby, 21 contract labours are found and held to be doing the same work as done by the permanent workmen of the petitioner. The occasion to render such decision had arisen on account of the disagreement with regard to the type of work performed by the workmen employed through contractor in the establishment of the petitioner.

(2.) The brief factual background, as far as it is relevant for the purpose of deciding the main issue, is that the petitioner engaged contract labour and, upon grievances being voiced by the trade union of contract labour, an enquiry into dissimilar conditions of service was ordered to be completed preferably before the end of December, 1994 by order of this Court dated 20.10.1994 in SCA No.9311 of 1994. Accordingly, the Commissioner of Labour completed the enquiry and, by order dated 29.12.1994, held, inter alia, that 26 workmen working under the contractor were performing the same kind of work as was performed by the permanent workmen of the petitioner. The petitioner challenged that order in Special Civil Application No.718 of 1995 which was allowed by order dated 2.2.1995 as under:

(3.) Although the impugned order is challenged on various grounds and the constitutional validity and vires of the relevant provisions of the Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolishment) Act, 1970 and the Rules made thereunder ("the Act" for short) are called into question in the petition, the learned counsel for the petitioner expressly restricted his arguments and attack to the main ground that the impugned order was passed in violation of the principles of natural justice insofar as opportunity to cross-examine the workmen, whose statements were recorded, was not afforded to the petitioner. It was strenuously argued that the right to cross-examine witnesses or persons on whose statements an order was based was an essential part of the principles of natural justice and that opportunity having been denied, the impugned order ought to be quashed as being arbitrary and in violation of the express direction of this Court reproduced hereinabove.