VOLTAS LIMITED Vs. B. SRIHARI AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Voltas Limited, Secunderabad, filed this writ petition challenging the order dated 06.12.2004 passed by the Additional Industrial Tribunal -cum -Additional Labour Court, Hyderabad, (hereinafter, referred to as 'the Labour Court') in M.P. No. 39 of 1999 filed by respondents 1 and 2 herein along with four others. By the said order, the Labour Court held that respondents 1 and 2 were, in effect, employees of M/s. Voltas Limited, which could be termed as the principal employer running the co -operative canteen through its agent, M/s. Voltas Employees Cooperative Canteen, Secunderabad, and directed it to pay the claimed amounts of Rs. 13,008/ - and Rs. 12,918/ - respectively to them. By order dated 17.02.2005, this Court granted interim suspension of the order passed by the Labour Court subject to deposit of the awarded amount within a time frame. The Labour Court was directed to keep the said amount in a fixed deposit till disposal of the writ petition or till further orders. This interim order was made absolute on 11.06.2008, when the vacate stay petition filed by respondents 1 and 2 herein was dismissed.

(2.) The writ petition was dismissed for default against M/s. Voltas Employees Co -operative Canteen, the third respondent, as per the Court Order dated 30.12.2010, which was given effect to on 09.03.2011. However, a restoration petition was filed on behalf of the third respondent and as Sri S. Sriram, learned counsel for the petitioner company, and Sri V. Hari Haran, learned counsel for respondents 1 and 2 herein, stated that they had no objection to restoration of the writ petition as against the third respondent, the petition was ordered on 14.09.2015 without going into the merits of the various averments made in the affidavit filed in support thereof.

(3.) Heard Sri S. Sriram, learned counsel for the petitioner company, Sri V. Han Haran, learned counsel for respondents 1 and 2, and Sri K. Srinivas Rao, party -in -person, representing the third respondent, in the purported capacity of its President.