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1995 (12) TMI 341 - SC - Indian LawsWhether Forest Department of the State Government is an "industry" within the meaning of section 2(j) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (’the Central Act’), which definition has been adopted by the Maharashtra Recognition of Trade Unions and Prevention of Unfair Labour Practices Act, 1971 ’the State Act’)? Whether in the cases at hand the employer, namely the State Government, had indulged in unfair labour practice visualised by item 6 of Schedule IV of the State Act, as alleged by the respondents before the Industrial Court, Pune/Ahmednagar? Held that:- Considering crux of the scheme to implement which some of the respondents were employed, we are of the view that the same cannot be regarded as a part of inalienable or inescapable function of the State for the reason that the scheme was intended even to fulfil the recreational and educational aspirations of the people. We are in no doubt that such a work could well be undertaken by an agency which is not required to be even an instrumentality of the State. This being the position, we hold that the aforesaid scheme undertaken by the Forest Department cannot be regarded as a part of sovereign function of the State, and so, it was open to the respondents to invoke the provisions of the State Act. We would say the same qua the social foresting work undertaken in Ahmednagar district. There was, therefore, 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. The object of the State Act, inter alia, being prevention of certain unfair labour practices, the same would be thwarted or get frustrated if such a burden is placed on a workman which he cannot reasonably discharge. In our opinion, it would be permissible on facts of a particular case to draw the inference mentioned in the second part of the item, if badlis, casuals or temporaries are continued as such for years. We further state that the present was such a case in as much as from the materials on record we are satisfied that the 25 workmen who went to Industrial Court of Pune (and 15 to Industrial Court, Ahmednagar) had been kept as casuals for long years with the primary object of depriving them the status of permanent employees in as much as giving of this status would have required the employer to pay the workmen at a rate higher than the one fixed under the Minimum Wages Act. We can think of no other possible object as, it may be remembered that the Pachgaon Rarwati Scheme was intended to cater to the recreational and educational aspirations also of the populace, which are not ephemeral objects, but par excellence permanent. We would say the same about environment-pollution-care work of Ahmednagar, whose need is on increase because of increase in pollution.Permanency is thus writ large on the face of both the types of work. If, even in such projects, persons are kept in jobs on casual basis for years the object manifests itself. Appeal dismissed. No ground to interefere with the impungned order of the Industrial Courts.
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