BALARAM SAHU Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS court has been called upon again to decide as to at what rate wages are to be paid to the N. M. R. workers. Precisely put, the question is whether they should get wages equal to those being made available to the regularly employed persons discharging the same duties and functions.

(2.) THIS is not the first occasion that this question has come up before this Court. We would have indeed thought that in view of the long line of decisions of this court based on the judgments of the Supreme Court on "equal pay for equal work", there would be no occasion to reexamine this question. But that is not so. The State has opposed in the present case to the grant of pay to the petitioners who are working either as Males or Discharge Observers. They are, however, being paid at daily rate varying from Rs. 12. 75 to Rs. 16/- whereas the basic salary of the persons doing the same type of work on regular basis is Rs. 150/- per month. They are, therefore, claiming wages paid to the regularly employed persons.

(3.) THIS question has been before this Court from 1985 and was examined in O. J. C. No. 1876 of 1985 (Jayakrushna Misra v. Managing Director, Orissa Construction Corporation Limited) disposed of on July 4, 1987, which was cited with approval in O. J. C. No. 766 of 1988 disposed of on December 12, 1991, to be followed again in O. J. C. No. 1110 of 1991 (Harakrushna Patnaik v. State of Orissa) disposed of on January 6, 1992. In all these cases, this Court had upheld the right of the N. M. R. employees to claim the rate of wages being paid to others similarly placed and appointed on regular basis. As already stated, this view had been taken relying on a catena of decisions of the Supreme Court, some of which were noted in the last mentioned O. J. C. No. 1110 of 1991. Despite this, the entitlement of the N. M. R. employees to get wages equal to those being paid to the regularly employed counterparts has been questioned in this petition. The basis of this question is that the appointment of work-charged staff and the regular staff is governed by certain rules and regulations, who are also often asked to perform duty beyond the prescribed hours in case of emergency without payment of any additional emoluments/remuneration, whereas the N. M. R. employees are engaged for specific duty hours only and do not render work equal to that of the employees appointed on regular basis. Another reason assigned for not treating these two classes of workers equal for the purpose of equal pay is that the regularly employed persons are under the disciplinary control of the employers, whereas the N. M. R. employees are not.