PRAMOD KUMAR SAMAL Vs. NATIONAL ALUMINUM COM LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners, seventy-two in number, have approached this Court for issuance of an appropriate writ, direction or order directing the opposite parties to declare the petitioner Nos. 1 to 38, 40, 41, 43, 46 to 60 and 62 to 72 as regular Security Guards, petitioner Nos. 39, 42 and 61 as regular Sear gents and petitioner Nos. 44 and 45 as regular Cooks in the establishment of NALCO. The further prayer is for a direction to the opposite parties 1, 2, 3 and 5 to pay the petitioners equal remuneration as is being paid to their counter-parts working in the regular establishment of the said Company.

(2.) The case of the petitioners is that they are engaged as contract labourers and as such are being exploited by the management. It is, their case that in view of the provisions contained in Section 10 of Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 (in short 'the Act'), it is necessary to direct the opposite parties for abolition of contract labour system in the establishment. Placing reliance on a decision of this Court in O.J.C. Nos. 3158 and 5291 of 1996, Bijay Kumar Jena and 215 Ors, v. Union of India and others 2000-I-LLJ-609 (Ori), disposed of by a common judgment dated August 26, 1999 wherein a direction was issued to the principal employer to absorb the contract labourers on regular basis even if there was no abolition of contract labour, the petitioners have made a prayer for their regularisation.

(3.) It is the case of the opposite parties 1 to 3 that the petitioners are not entitled to the relief claimed and the petition is liable to be dismissed on the short ground that the contract system in the establishment is continuing on the basis of permission granted to it by the competent authority under the Act. It is further stated that it is not NALCO, but opposite party No. 5 which is the principal employer, as it is the said opposite party No. 5 and not NALCO establishment which has recruited the petitioners and posted them at the corporate office at Bhubaneswar. It is their further case that against the judgment which has been relied upon by the petitioners, special leave petitions which have been relied upon by the petitioners, special leave petitions are pending before the Supreme Court of India vide S.L.P. (C) No. 16803 of 1999 and S.L.P. (C) No. 17279 of 1999 and vide its order dated November 16, 1999, the operative portion of the order dated August 26, 1999 passed by this Court in O.J.C. Nos. 3158 and 5291 of 1994, Bijay Kumar's case (supra) has been stayed. It is also averred that the earlier decision of the Apex Court in Air India Statutory Corporation v. United Labour Union & Ors., AIR 1997 SC 645 : 1997-I-LLJ-1113, is the subject-matter of reference before a larger Bench.