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10. Even assuming that the settlements could be technically interpreted as contended by the Bank, whether it amounts to irreparable damage and extreme injustice to the petitioners and similar empanelled workers to invoke the extraordinary powers of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India to render absolute justice by granting the appropriate remedies in accordance with law and equity ?

9. The unquestioned status of the petitioners as the workmen of the Bank needs no probe. That they were the workmen within the meaning of Section 2(s), that the Bank is the employer under Section 2(g) and the settlements in question are the settlements within the meaning of Section 2(p) of the Act are the core and the sprouting result. In fact the settlements dated 17-11-1981, 16-7-1988, 27-10-1988, 9-1-1991 and 30-7-1996 are styled as settlements under Section 2(p) and 18(1) read with Rule 58 of the Act and the Rules. Such settlements are the results of certain disputes raised by the Federation with the respondent bank. While issuing the proceedings, No.F.3/3/104/87-IR dated 16-8-1990 to the Chief Executives of all the public sector banks, which include the respondent bank, modalities were laid down in regard to resolving the problem of existing temporary employees (which include the petitioners) which has been the part of the proceeding. Actually such employees have been called as workmen employees classified into a) permanent employees, b) probationers, c) temporary employees and d) part time employees. The petitioners might fall under the category of temporary employees and part time employees. The definition of 'temporary employees' as per Shastri 's award is noted in the approach paper as hereunder :

'temporary employee' means an employee who has been appointed for a limited period for a work which is of an essentially temporary nature, or who is employed temporarily as an additional employee in connection with a temporary increase in work of a permanent nature".
The modification of the definition in para 23.51 of the Desai 's award is also noted as 'temporary employees will mean a workman who has been appointed for a limited period of work which is of an essentially temporary nature or who is employed temporarily as an additional workman in connection with a temporary increase in work of a permanent nature and includes a workman other than permanent workman who is appointed in a temporary vacancy caused by the absence of a particular permanent workman"
It is also pointed out therein that following the definition of temporary employees in Desai's award such employees are placed in the Bipartite settlement dated 19-10-1966. Referring to para 20.8 of Bipartite settlement, para 3 of the approach paper dealt with the question of appointment of temporary workmen subject to certain conditions viz, that such temporary appointment shall not exceed a period of 3 months during which time the bank shall make arrangement for filling up the vacancies permanently and after such a temporary workman is eventually selected for filling up the vacancies, the penel of such temporary employment will be taken into account as part of his probation period and that temporary workman will be given preference for filling up permanent vacancies and if selected, they may have to undergo probation. The priorities of absorption or appointment of such categories of workmen has been spelt out therein. Therefore, in whatever manner such employees are called, no doubt is left in the understanding of the matter both by such employees and the bank and the Government of India they are the workman. There is also an indication in the settlement dated 17-11-1987 and also in the office note described as Annexure B attached to it that such industrial disputes as to appointment or absorption were pending before Industrial Tribunals and Labour Courts for adjudication and therefore it was agreed under the settlement in Clause 12 as follows :