THE MANAGEMENT OF CROMPTON ENGINEERING COMPANY (MADRAS) PRIVATE LIMITED Vs. THE PRESIDING OFFICER, ADDITIONAL LABOUR COURT AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition to quash the award of the Labour Court, Madras dated 5th December, 1970. made in I.D. No. 155 of 1968. Most of the facts are not in controversy.

(2.) THE petitioner, the Cromption Engineering Company (Madras) Private Limited, had employed the respondents 2 to 4 herein temporarily for a specific period or in respect of a particular contract work undertaken by the petitioner. The three persons had been employed for several such periods and for several such contracts. Exhibits M -1 and M -4 which are the orders of appointment in respect of W. W. 1 and W. W. 3 show that they were appointed in respect of the particular contract or for particular period and their appointments were purely temporary and came to an end as soon as the period or the job was over. The respondents 2 to 4 herein raised an industrial dispute on the allegation that they Were not given any work with effect from a particular date. That dispute was referred for adjudication by the Government in G. O. R. No. 2578 dated 22nd November, 1968. The points of reference were:

(3.) THE Labour Court has proceeded on the basis that there was some difficulty in holding that respondents 2 to 4 herein were permanent employees of the company, and the company had separate muster rolls for permanent labourers and the benefits that are available to the permanent labourers were not given to these workmen. It is not disputed that respondents 2 to 4 herein were paid only daily rates of wages and they were paid at the end of the week on Saturdays, and they were paid only on the days when they had worked, and they were not entitled to wages on days on which they did not work and they were not entitled to any holidays. Notwithstanding these facts, the Labour Court simply on the basis of the judgment of this Court in Elumlai v. Management of Simplex Concrete Piles, (1970) 2 L.L.J. 454, came to the conclusion that even casual labourers are included in the definition of 'workmen' in Section 2(s) of the Industrial Disputes Act, and therefore the respondents 2 to 4 herein were entitled to reinstatement. In my opinion, the Labour Court committed an error in coming to this conclusion. In the decision referred to above, the only question that was considered by this Court was whether a casual worker will come within the expression ' workman ' occurring in Section 2 (s) of the Industrial Disputes Act. In that case, the Labour Court held that the casual labourers were not workmen and on that basis, the claim petition filed by the casual labourers was dismissed. When the matter came up before this Court, this Court held that the definition of the term 'workman' found in Section 2(s) of the Act would include a casual worker also, and on this finding remanded the matter back to the Labour Court for fresh consideration. However, while doing so, this Court clearly pointed out that that this Court was not deciding anything as to whether the petitioner therein was entitled to any relief under any of the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act or not, and all that the Court decided was that the petitioner therein was a workman within the scope of the definition of the word in Section 2(s) of the Act.