IMPORTANT POINT
Employees working as Supervisors in the Railway Handicraft Centres under a beneficially intended scheme were held as not entitled to the status of the railway employees.

ORDER

The appellants before us in this appeal, have called in question the validity and correctness of the order dated 13.1.2000 passed by the High Court in CWP No.6654/99. The appellants in the first instance approached the Central Administration Tribunal by filing O.A. No. 3099/91 and O.A. No.1014/93. The Tribunal dismissed both the O.As. Not satisfied with and aggrieved by the said orders of the Tribunal they approached the High Court by filing the writ petition afore-mentioned. The High Court did not find any good reason or valid ground to take a different view than the one taken by the Tribunal in that view the writ petition was dismissed, affirming the orders passed by the Tribunal.

2. The appellants claimed that they were employees of Northern Railways and were working as supervisors in the Handicraft Centres; they were selected and appointed as supervisors by the railway authorities; they have been working as railway employees and as such they were entitled for the reliefs sought for in the original applications before the Tribunal. In O.A. 3099/91 the appellant No.1 herein, namely, Phool Badan Tiwari was aggrieved by the notice dated 17.12.1991 by which the President of Mahila Sewing Centre, Ghaziabad had invited applications for filling up the post of supervisor in the Handicraft Centre of Ghaziabad. It was her case that when she had already been appointed pursuant to the selection held on 1.7.1989, no fresh appointment could, be made for the same post. O.A. No. 1014/93 was filed by the appellants and one more person seeking the reliefs that their services be regularised with all consequential benefits, declare them as railway servants, direct the respondents to pay their regular pay-scales with all allowances and to quash such policy/policies which may come in the way of seeking regularisation of their services.

3. The Tribunal looking to the stand taken by the respondents came to the conclusion that the appellants are not at all railway servants and they being not railway servants the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to decide their cases, although in O.A. No.1014/93, the Tribunal referred to the contentions of the parties and ultimately following the order passed in O.A. No.3099/91, holding that it had no jurisdiction, dismissed O.A. No. 1014/93 as well. As already noticed above, the High Court did not interfere with the orders passed by the Tribunal.

4. Mr. Anis Suhrawardy, learned counsel for the appellants urged that the appellants have been working with the railways for long number of years, some of them have been working for the last more than 30 years; these Handicraft Centres are managed and controlled by railway authorities; for all practical purposes it is the railway authorities which run these Handicraft Centres; the appellants have been working as regular employees of the railways and having regard to these facts their services need to be regularised. According to him, the Tribunal as well the High Court were not right in dismissing the claims made by the appellants. In support of his submissions the learned counsel relied on the decision of this Court in M.M.R. Khan and Ors. vs. Union of India and Ors. [1990 (Supp.) SCC 191] .

5. In opposition, Mr. Mukul Rohtagi, learned Addl. Solicitor General, pointing out to the counter filed on behalf of the respondents and drawing our attention to the appointment orders issued to the appellants, contended that the Tribunal after detailed consideration of the respective contentions, concluded that the appellants were not employees of the railways and as such it had no jurisdiction. The High Court, having regard to the facts and circumstances, was right in affirming the orders passed by the Tribunal. He added that the appellants were selected to work as supervisors in the Handicraft Centres under a beneficially intended scheme to do good and help the wives and daughters of the railway employees and in that scheme the appellants were select