M NATARAJAN Vs. CHIEF ENGINEER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The writ petitions have been filed challenging the memo issued by the Chief Engineer, Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation, Chennai, the first respondent herein directing the Chief Engineers and Superintending Engineers to award contract works only to those contractors who have EPF account number.

(2.) Since the issue involved in all the writ petitions is one and the same, they are taken up together and disposed of by this common order.

(3.) The grievance of the petitioners is that the petitioners are Class-I contractors in TANGEDCO and TANTRANSCO and they have participated in various tenders called for by the respondents and they have also completed many contract works for the respondents. All of a sudden, now the first respondent issued a memo to the Chief Engineer as well as to the Superintending Engineers stating that the work should be awarded only to the contractors who have Employees Provident Fund account number. In view of the above memo, now the authorities insisting the petitioners to register themselves under the Employees Provident Fund. According to them, the duration of the works awarded to the petitioners is very shorter period and they are employing labourers on daily wages who come from various States and various Districts and they are not the permanent employees. As soon as the work is completed or in the middle of the work, the employees will go away to other works which are beneficial to them. Further, the work is only for a very limited period and the petitioners also unable to guarantee that they will get another work immediately after the awarded work is completed and they cannot keep permanent employees. Hence, the direction issued by the first respondent to the second respondent that the works should be awarded only to the contractors who have E.P.F. Number cannot be carried out practically and it will cause great prejudice to them. In the above circumstances, the present writ petitions have been filed.