HRIDAYANAND PANDEY Vs. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Sri A. K. Pandey, L. R. Khan and Sri Niranjan Kumar Verma for petitioners and Sri Sabhajeet Yadav for U. P. Jal Nigam.

(2.) The petitioners are employees engaged by the Piece Rate Worker (P.R.W.) of the Constructions and Design Services of U. P. Jal Nigam in its various units. By these writ petitions they have prayed for writs of mandamus commanding the respondents not to discontinue their services ; to regularise their services like regular employee of U. P. Jal Nigam and its unit named as Construction and Design Services, and to pay wages in regular pay scales.

(3.) The U. P. Jal Nigam has been constituted under Section 14 of the U. P. Water Supply Sewerage Act, 1975. The Constructions and Design Service of U. P. Jal Nigam is a separate and independent wing of U. P. Jal Nigam to function on commercial basis, and to undertake various constructions works in the State of U. P. on the pattern of U. P. Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Limited. The Constructions and Design Services are engaged in various constructions works as well as mechanical constructions works of different Local Bodies and Government Departments. The main purpose of the establishment of its units including unit No. 30 of Construction and Design Services in District Varanasi in 1994 was for laying down P.S.S. Pipeline in the pattern of Constructions and Design Service in the city of Varanasi under a scheme financed by World Bank. The work is not executed by the contractors. The unit engages Piece Rate Workers (P.R.W.), who arrange necessary labour and manage and take work from them. The petitioners, however, claim that they are directly employed by the Constructions and Design Service which is an integral part of U. P. Jal Nigam and does not have any separate existence and that they are paid and their work is under direct control and supervision of the officers of Constructions and Design Services who are all the officers of U. P. Jal Nigam. He submits that the body employer is unregistered and the contractor (P.R.W.) is unlicensed and thus the entire defence of contracted employment through P.R.W. is a camouflage. He has relied upon the Supreme Court decision in Secretary Haryana State Electricity Board v. Suresh and Anr.. (1999) 5 SCC 601, where it was held that where at the relevant time the establishment was not registered as a Principal employer under Act No. 37 of 1990 and the so called contractor was not the licensed contractor under the Act the inevitable conclusion is that the so called contract system is a mere camouflage.