Gujarat Forest Producers, Gatherers ... vs State Of Gujarat on 12 April, 2004
[g] The decision of the Supreme Court in Chief Conservator of Forests v. Jagannath Maruti Kondhare, reported in (1996)2 SCC 293, was cited to point out that the dichotomy of sovereign and non-sovereign functions of the State did not really exist and whether a particular function of the State is or is not a sovereign function, depends on the nature of the power and manner of its exercise. It was held that the Schemes in question cannot be regarded as a part of inalienable or inescapable functions of the State for the reason that the scheme was intended even to fulfil the recreational and educational aspirations of the people. In paragraph 16 of the judgement, the Supreme Court held that there was no doubt that such a work could well be undertaken by an agency which was not required to be even an instrumentality of the State. The learned counsel pointed out that initially, the Supreme court was concerned with the question as to whether the entire forest department of the State was an industry, but since the arguments were then confined to the two Schemes, namely, Panchgaon Parvati Scheme, which was framed by the government on the basis of a policy decision, as noted in paragraph 15 of the judgement, and the social forestry work undertaken in Ahmednagar, as noted in paragraph 18 of the judgement, it was held that there was no threshold bar in knocking the door of the Industrial Courts by the respondents making a grievance about adoption of unfair labour practice by the appellants.