JUDGMENT

Syed Shah Mohammed Quadri, J.-Leave is granted.

2. The Judgment and order of a Division Bench of the High Court of Judicature at Bombay in Writ Petition No. 979 of 2000 passed on April 26, 2000, is brought under challenge in this appeal by special leave. Appellant No. 1 is Government of India Undertaking and appellant No. 2 is its General Manager (hereinafter they will be referred to as the management ). The first respondent is the union of workmen of appellant No. 1 and the second respondent is its member and a workman (hereinafter they will be referred to as the workmen ).

3. To comprehend the controversy in this appeal, narration of the following facts will be useful.

The management is running a canteen in compliance with the requirements of Section 46 of the Factories Act, 1948, in which the workmen were employed purporting to be the employees under a contractor. The litigation between the parties commenced with the filing of Writ Petition No. 2206 of 1997 by the workmen in the High Court of Judicature at Bombay seeking a direction that they (specified in the Annexure A thereto) be absorbed as regular employees of the management with party of pay-scales and other service conditions applicable to regular employees with effect from their actual date of entry into service with the contractor. On August 29, 1997, the High Court disposed of the writ petition taking the view that as the workmen were engaged in a statutory canteen they ipso facto became the employees of the principal employer, namely, the management and ordered their absorption subject to conditions (a) to (e) which will be referred to presently. That judgment was assailed by the management in this Court, by special leave, in Civil Appeal No. 1854 of 1998. And inasmuch as the High Court imposed certain conditions for their absorption, the workmen also filed Civil Appeal No. 1855 of 1998, by special leave of this Court. Those appeals were dismissed by a three Judge Bench of this Court on August 4, 1999, reported in Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd. & Anr. v. Shramik Sena & Ors.1. Thereafter, for similar reliefs the workmen filed Writ Petition No. 5817 of 1999 in the High Court, but the same was dismissed as withdrawn on November 17, 1999. The present writ petition which has given rise to this appeal, is the third in the series. The High Court, by the judgment impugned in this appeal, held, in regard to condition (a), that for purposes of regularisation of the workmen the maximum age limit should be taken as the age of superannuation and, in regard to condition (e), that the workmen who did not fulfil conditions for regularisation should be retrenched in terms of the provisions of Chapter V-B of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (for short, the I.D. Act ) and directed that the process of regularisation of the workmen in accordance with the said judgments be completed within two months from the date of the impugned judgment. The validity of the pronouncement of the High Court on those two aspects is assailed by the management in this appeal before us.

4. Mr. T.R. Andhyarujina, the learned senior counsel appearing for the management, submitted that it was the case of the management that the maximum age limit of 25 years would be applicable as on the date of their entry into service and not as on the date of hearing of the present writ petition but the High Court had not appreciated properly the contention of the management and having erroneously interpreted condition (a), directed that the age of superannuation should be taken as the maximum age limit which in effect had altered condition (a). The second contention of the learned counsel relates to retrenchment compensation. He argued that condition (e) provided that the workmen who could not be absorbed, should be considered for future absorption in accordance with the provisions of Section 25H and be paid retrenchment compensation in accordance with law but the High Court introduced a new condition, v