FEROZE SONS Vs. B C BASU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE first petitioner Messrs. Feroze Sons is a partnership firm having its registered office at 12 Harrisburg Second Lane, Calcutta; the second and third petitioners are partners and the fourth and fifth petitioners are employees of the said firm. The firm carries on business as Iron and Steel-merchants and also in Handing and storage of diverse cargoes including steel, and owns and maintains a Steal Stockyard at 35, Jagat Banerji ghat Road, Shibpur which had been taken on a sub-tenancy from Burn and Co. Ltd. The firm entered into an agreement with Hindustan Steel Limited for handling and storage of diverse iron arid steel materials dispatched by the said company to Calcutta from its plants at rourkela, Bhilai and Durgapur. Under the agreement (a copy being annexure 'b' to the petition) the firm has to unload and handle steel goods from the railway wagons placed on the Company's private sidings and stack the materials in the aforesaid go down at How rah and thereafter hand over the- materials to the company or its customers on receipt of requisite delivery orders. For the purpose of its business the firm has permanent labourers and also utilizes the services of labourers employed through sardars.

(2.) ON November 28, 1977 a Labour inspector under the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act 1970 (here-in after the Act) filed a petition of complaint against the petitioners in the court of Sub-divisional Judicial Magistrate how rah under section 23 of the Act for violation of section 12 of the Act read with paragraph 21 of the West Bengal contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Rules, 1972 (hereinafter the rules ). It was alleged in the said petition of complaint that the first petitioner being a contractor as defined in section 2 (c)of the Act and having approximately 213 workmen employed by the said petitioner through six sardars for loading, unloading and sagging works at 35, Jagat Banerjee Ghat Road, Shibpur, how rah had contravened the provisions of section 12 of the Act read with Rule 21 of the Rules by executing its work through contract labour but without obtaining a licence from the Licensing Officer, How rah as required under the aforesaid provisions of the Act and the Rules.

(3.) MR. Subrata Rai Chaudhury, learned Senior Advocate appearing on behalf of the petitioners, has contended that as the first petitioner cannot be said to be a contractor as defined in section 2 (1) (c) of the Act, it is not required to take out a licence under section 12 of the said Act and consequently the entire proceeding pending against the petitioners is misconceived and should be quashed.