Judgment

E. S. VENKATARAMIAH

( 1 ) THIS is a petition under Art. 32 of the Constitution of India.

( 2 ) THE petitioner in this case is the U. P. Income-tax Department Contingent Paid Staff Welfare Association. The members of the said association, as the name of the Association itself suggests, are the contingent paid staff in the I. T. Department. Their complaint is that even though they have been rendering the service as Class IV employees in the I. T. Department for a large number of years, the I. T. Department has not taken steps to regularise their services and to absorb them as members of the Class IV services and that they are being paid wages as daily rated labourers lower than the salary and allowances which the Class IV employees of the Department have been drawing. They pray for the issue of a writ in the nature of mandamus to the respondents to pay them the same salary and allowances which are paid to the employees of the Department in corresponding posts and also for regularising their service. A counter-affidavit has been filed on behalf of the respondents. The respondents do not deny that the contingent paid staff are being paid daily wages lower than what is being paid to regular employees. It also refers to certain Government order providing for regularisation under certain terms and conditions.

( 3 ) WHEN this petition came up for admission the Court directed that this case should be listed after the disposal of the Writ Petitions Nos. 373 and 302 of 1986 instituted by the daily rated casual labour employed in the P. and T. Department, since the questions involved in this case and in those two writ petitions were almost the same. By its judgment dated 27-10-1987 in Daily Rated Casual Labour employed under P and T Department v. Union of India (1987) 5 JT 164 : (AIR 1987 SC 2342), this Court has issued the following directions as regards the claim of the daily rated workmen involved therein for higher wages

"we accordingly direct the Union of India and the other respondents to pay wages to the workmen who are employed as casual labourers belonging to the several categories of employees referred to above in the Posts and Telegraph Department at the rates equivalent to the minimum pay in the pay scales of the regularly employed workers in the corresponding cadres but without any increments with effect from 5/02/1986 on which date the first of the above two petitions, namely, Writ Petition No. 302 of 1986 was filed. The petitioners are entitled to corresponding Dearness Allowance and Additional Dearness Allowance, if any, payable thereon. Whatever other benefits which are now being enjoyed by the casual labourers shall continue to be extended to them. "

( 4 ) ON the claim for regularisation of the services of the workmen involved in the abovementioned case, this Court issued the following direction

"we, therefore, direct all the respondents to prepare a scheme on a rational basis for absorbing as far as possible the casual labourers who have been continuously working for more than one year in the P. and T. Department. "

( 5 ) THE facts and circumstances of the present case are similar to the facts and circumstances of the case relating to the daily rated labour in the P. and T. Department. We have carefully considered the pleas in the counter-affidavit. The Government orders providing for the absorption of the contingent paid staff are hedged in by a number of conditions. We also find that many such employees have been working on daily wages for nearly eight years and more. We are not satisfied with the scheme which is now in force. We are, therefore, of the view that in this case also we should issue the same directions as in the above decision for the reasons given by the Court in the above decision. We accordingly allow this Writ Petition and direct the respondents to pay wages to the workmen who are employed as the contingent paid staff of the I. T. Department throughout India, doing the work of Class IV employees at