POTAIN INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED Vs. DINESH GANESH SHINDE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Mr. Bapat, learned counsel for the petitioner and Mr. Bhavake, learned counsel for the respondents.

(2.) The challenge in these petitions is to a common order dtd. 25/6/2019 passed by the learned Member, Industrial Court, Pune whereby the complaint filed by the respondents/workmen has been allowed by grant of a declaration that the petitioner(original respondent no. 6) has indulged in an unfair labour practice under Item No. 9 of Schedule IV of MRTP and PULP Act, 1971 with a further direction to the petitioner to desist and cease therefrom. It is also declared that the petitioner has illegally terminated the services of respondents/complainants through the contractors S.S.K. Enterprises and Shriram Enterprises who had no concern with the services of the respondents/complainants in the petitioner-company. There is a further direction that the petitioner shall allow the respondents/complainants to join their services in its company forthwith.

(3.) Mr. Bapat, learned counsel for the petitioner in assailing the impugned order has many submissions. The foremost contention is that the complaint itself was not maintainable under Sec. 28 of MRTU and PULP Act for the reason that the petitioner in paragraph 2 of the written statement had categorically raised a contention that there was no employer-employee relationship between the petitioner and the complainants/workmen and that they were the workers of the contractor. He has drawn my attention to the issues which came to be framed and more particularly to issue no. 2, i.e., "Whether employer-employee relationship is undisputed or indisputable?". Mr. Bapat, however, would submit that when the matter was taken up for adjudication, the issue as framed was altered as referred to in paragraph 7 of the impugned judgment, by which the Industrial Court shifted the burden on the petitioner, when the issue came to be framed as - "Whether the respondents prove that there is no relation as employer-employee between them and the complainants?", which has been answered in negative.