RAJALAKSHMI Vs. PRESIDING OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE above writ petition has been filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying to issue a writ of certiorarified mandamus to call for the records pertaining to the common award of the first respondent-Labour Court dated July 25, 1996 made in I. D. Nos. 314 and 315 of 1993 and quash the same to the extent it treats the petitioners as temporary workers and denies them back wages and attendant benefits and direct the second respondent to continue the petitioners as permanent Tea Pluckers in sivasakthi Estate, Gudalur, Nilgiris and pay them back wages from the date of their non-employment on June 6, 1992 till the date of their reinstatement as Tea Pluckers. On september 21, 2004, when the above matter has been taken up for consideration in the presence of the learned counsel for the petitioners, there was no representation offered on the part of the respondents particularly on the part of the contesting second respondent. Therefore, this Court is left with no option but to reserve the orders upon hearing the learned counsel for the petitioners for appreciation of the same in the light of the materials placed on record.

(2.) IN the affidavit filed in support of the above writ petition, the first petitioner swearing on her behalf and also on behalf of the second petitioner, would submit that she was working under the second respondent-Management from 1981 onwards as Tea Plucker as a permanent worker and the second petitioner was working as such from October 1, 1984 that the second respondent-Management was not in the habit of maintaining registers pertaining to permanent and casual labourers as required under Section 3-b (l) of the Plantation labour Act; that the benefits provided under. the said Act for the workers were denied by the second respondent and hence the petitioners made complaints against the second respondent when the Plantation Labour Inspector visited second respondent's Estate as a result of which the petitioners were denied employment from june 6, 1992 by the second respondent without any notice and in spite of their representation to the second respondent dated June 7, 1992 thereby demanding the employment as usual, no fruitful reply came forth and hence they have raised industrial disputes before the Labour court in I. D. Nos. 314 and 315 of 1993 and the Labour Court by its common Award dated july 25, 1996 directed the second respondent-Management to employ the petitioners as temporary workers, without back wages. Aggrieved against such a finding of the labour Court, the petitioners have come forward to file the above writ petition.

(3.) THE plea of the second respondent before the Labour Court in both the industrial disputes raised by the employees is that they have no lien on employment; that the petitioners have not worked as permanent workers in the estate; that the petitioners are purely casual workers in the estate on a day-today basis as and when such casual work was available during the year 1991; that the casual work of the petitioners has been confined only for about one year from June, 1991 to June, 1992 that too for about 10 to 20 days in each month depending upon the casual work available; that the casual workers were paid wages on day-to-day basis depending upon the exigencies of the work and there is no permanency involved at all in the employment of the petitioners; that the petitioners could not be given work since the casual work was not available after June, 1992 and that the management is not under any obligation to grant employment since there is no contract of employment between the petitioner and the respondent-Management.