SATYAJIT DEY Vs. HINDUSTHAN STEELWORKS CONSTRUCTION LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioners in this writ petition are employed as monthly rated employees in the. Head Office at different sites at calcutta of the first respondent. The first respondent carries on business of construction and erection of steel works and other industrial projects and equipment. It has its Head Office in Calcutta and work sites at various Projects in west Bengal and at other parts of India. At present it has two works sites in Calcutta, one is with the Hooghly bridge Project and the other with the metropolitan Transport Project. It has three classes of employees, viz. , executive staff, non-executive staff and workers. The executive staff comprises of managerial staff, senior technical staff such as engineers etc and senior supervisory staff. The non-executive staff comprises clerical staff and junior technical and non-technical supervisors. All the rest are workers doing skilled or unskilled manual work of various description including crane operators! and operators of other equipments, masons, electricians, security guards, sweepers, peons, messengers, bearers, cooks etc as on 1st October 1983 the first respondent, had in its employment all over india about 17,430 workers the number of workers in the' petitioners' categories was about 5220 of whom about 132 including the petitioners were employed at the Head Office and two work sites at Calcutta. Petitioners NOS. 15 16 and 17 are employed at the Hooghly Bridge project.

(2.) THE petitioners in this writ petition contend that since the petitioners are monthly rated employees they are covered by the company's service rules. The petitioners contend that according to Company's Service Rule every employee of the company is entitled to earned leave of 30 days in a year which can be accumulated for a period of 180 days at a time. But the petitioner contend that there exist sharp discrimination and inequality of in respect of earned leave facilities in as much as those who were appointed on or before 1. 5. 74 are granted 30 days earned leave and those who were appointed after 1. 5. 74 but before 1. 1. 78 are granted 18 days earned leave but those appointed thereafter from 1. 1. 78 are granted only 14 days earned leave a year. Accordingly, the contention of the petitioners is that there is the violation of the fundamental rights of the employees in the matter of granting of leave and there exists no rational or intelligible ground of discrimination between different groups. On the contrary they are entitled to be similarly treated as they are all similarly placed.

(3.) THE learned Additional Advocate general appearing for the petitioners contended that as peon, sweepers, watchmen, security guards, cook, messengers etc, have the same duty hours in the Head Office and in the site office. The petitioners being peon, cooks, security guards efs. should be granted the same earned leave and to do otherwise would be an arbitrary or unjust discrimination.