Delhi High Court
Union Of India (Uoi) And Ors. vs Sh. Ram Dayal Pal And Ors. on 30 October, 2001
Author: Sharda Aggarwal
Bench: Sharda Aggarwal
JUDGMENT Khan, J.
1. Respondents status is in dispute. While they claim to be casual labourers engaged by the petitioners and seek benefit of petitioners' Casual Labour (Grant of Temporary Status & Regularisation) Scheme dated 1.10.1989. Petitioners are disowning them. According to petitioners, they were engaged by a contractor who was asked to supply them security guards. Short question that arises, therefore, is whether respondents were casual labour or contract labour and whether they were entitled to the benefit of petitioners' Casual labour (Grant of Temporary Status & Regularisation) Scheme.
2. Respondents filed OA No. 287/2001 before CAT and claimed that they were casual labour engaged by petitioners and were entitled to grant of temporary status under petitioners' scheme dated 1.10.1989 under which they had become eligible in terms thereof. They accordingly asked for direction to petitioners to confer them temporary status under the scheme and to restrain them from disengaging them.
3. Petitioners disputed their status in their reply and claimed that they were at no point of time engaged by them. On the contrary, they had assigned the supply of security guards to a private contractor and, therefore, these respondents could not claim to be the casual labourers engaged by them.
4. Tribunal, on consideration of the matter, failed to deal with the disputed status of respondents and on the contrary allowed their OA by placing reliance on a connected OA No. 878/2001 in which petitioner was granted the benefit of the Scheme of 1989 and consequential temporary status.
5. Petitioner have now filed this petition questioning the Tribunal order. Their primary grievance is that Tribunal had not dealt with their plea disputing the status of respondents as casual labourer and had on the other hand misplaced this reliance on its own order passed in similar OA No. 878/2001.
6. We have examined impugned Tribunal order dated 25.2.2001 and we find that Tribunal had side-tracked the basic issue of determination of respondents' status to find out whether they were engaged as casual labour by petitioners and could be held entitled to the grant of temporary status Scheme of 1989. On the contrary it had taken an escape route by relying upon its order in some connected OA No. 878/2001 without taking care to find out whether that order was wholly applicable and attracted to respondents' case.
7. We have perused the order passed by Tribunal in that OA (No. 878/2001) also and find that it was wholly distinguishable, because in that case Tribunal had found the petitioner to be engaged as peon and had further found him to be discharging the work of perennial to bring him within the grant of temporary status scheme. But in the present case, it had at no stage deemed appropriate to ask respondents to establish their claim by requiring them to produce any order of engagement passed by petitioner or to show by some other prima facie proof that they had received the wages from them. Nor had it determined their status in the facts and circumstances of their own case so as to return a finding whether they were engaged as a casual labour or through a contractor.
8. Impugned Tribunal order, therefore, leaves much to be desired and becomes unsustainable. Respondents could only claim the benefit of petitioners 1989 Scheme if they had been engaged as casual labour and had put in the requisite number of days of service to satisfy the requirements of that scheme which was admittedly not applicable to the contract labour. In case they were found to be employed by contractor, application of that scheme would naturally be excluded.
9. We had repeatedly asked the learned counsel for respondents to show us some prima facie proof of engagement of respondents as casual labour but she had failed to do so. Therefore, as it is, there is nothing on record to show that they enjoyed the status of casual labour to claim the benefit of 1989 Scheme.
10. This petition is accordingly allowed and impugned Tribunal Order dated 25.5.2001 quashed. However, should respondents still be in possession of any proof to support their claim of having been engaged as casual labour, they could re-agitate the matter by an appropriate remedy and in an appropriate forum.