Willful disobedience of court orders constitutes contempt of court, and the principle of 'equal pay for equal work' applies to all temporary employees.

ORDER :

The Contempt Case is filed against the respondents/ contemnors and punish them under Section 10 to 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act for their willful disobedience of non-implementing the order dated 06.09.2022 passed by this Court in WP No.28407 of 2022 as modified in the order dated 22.12.2022 passed by a Division Bench of this Court in W.A No.1028 of 2022.

2. Heard Sri P. Sudhakar Reddy, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners and Sri V.R. Reddy Kovvuri, learned counsel and Sri Anup Koushik Karavadi, learned counsel appearing for the respondents.

3. This Court vide order dated 06.09.2022 has disposed of the writ petition in W.P.No.28407 of 2022. The operative portion of the said order as follows :

“Having regard to the facts and circumstances and without touching the merits of the case, the 3rd respondent is directed to consider and pass appropriate orders on the representation dated 27.07.2022 of the petitioners, following the law laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of State of Punjab and others v. Jagjit Singh and others, 2017 (1) SCC 148, for payment minimum pay scale to the petitioners, within a period of eight (08) weeks from the date of receipt of the order.

Accordingly, the writ petition is disposed of at the admission stage. No costs”

4. Thereafter, the respondents herein preferred an appeal vide W.A.No.1028 of 2022 before a Division Bench of this Court and the same was disposed of by modifying the order of the learned Single Judge. The operative portion of the said order as under:

“Writ petitioners are at liberty to submit appropriate representations before all the concerned authorities for redressal of their grievances within a period of two weeks from the date of receipt of this order. On receipt of such representations, the same e examined and appropriate orders be passed by the authorities concerned strictly in accordance with law, within a period of six weeks thereafter. It is also made clear that the Writ Petitioners are entitled to place on record the relevant judgments, if any, for consideration of the same by the authorities concerned.

Accordingly, the Order passed by the learned Single Judge is hereby modified. There shall be no order as to costs.”

5. Counter affidavit filed by the 2nd respondent denying all the averments made in the petition. It is stated that the claim of the petitioners and the issues thereon involves the disputed question of facts which shall be adjudged on full fledged trial/enquiry as upheld by Hon’ble Apex Court in a similar issue fell for consideration reported in 2001 (7) SCC pg.1. Admittedly, the nature of work discharged by the petitioners is not similar when compared with regular employees attached to the corresponding posts. This respondent is not having any of the posts which are regular as stated by the petitioners and they never engaged against vacancy related to corresponding cadre of regular posts. It is further stated that non-payment of dues by APSPDCL in time resulted in enhancement of the Bank Guarantee/Letter of credit and even stoppage of supply to the APSPDCL by the generators for the subsequent month, which affected the uninterrupted supply of electricity as well as credibility of APSPDCL from imposing additional financial burden in the form of LPS and all these issues shall be taken into account which are important and necessary and in due consideration of the same the orders are issued duly rejecting the claim of the petitioners.

6. Counter affidavit has been filed by the respondent No.3 denying all the allegations made in the petition. It is stated that the APTRANSCO has received the representations from few outsourced workers i.e., one from Sri Md. Venatesh Babu and 30 others and another from Sri S.Mohammadali and 22 others and Sri T.Jayaramudu and 38 others engaged through third party Man Power Agencies as Shift Operators and watch and wards to provide minimum time scale comparable to the pot held by regular employees is examined