Point of law: Labour Law – arrears of pay – Court need not advert to the submissions made on behalf of the management as the same would tantamount to adjudication of the controversy on merits.

JUDGMENT :

1. In this intra court appeal under Section 4 of the Karnataka High Court Act, 1961 the appellant has assailed the validity of the order dated 04.03.2014 passed by the learned Single Judge by which writ petition preferred by respondent No.1 has been allowed and the order dated 31.07.2012 passed by the Deputy Chief Labour Commissioner by which he had held the proceeding initiated by the appellant under Rule 25(2)(v)(b) of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Central Rules, 1971 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Rules' for short) to be maintainable.

2. Facts leading to filing of this appeal briefly stated are that the appellant (hereinafter referred to as 'the Union' for short) filed a petition under Rule 25(v)(a) of the Rules. It was averred that some of its members was employed in the establishment of respondent No.1 by respondent No.2 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Management' and 'the Contractor' respectively), by the Contractor as watchman. It was further averred that the members of the Union who have been hired as Watchman by the Contractor are performing similar or same kind of work, however, they are neither paid wages as prescribed in law nor are paid for holidays as is applicable to permanent staff of the Management. A direction in the petition was sought to the Management as well as the Contractor to pay the salary prescribed in Clause (4) of the 9th bipartite settlement and to pay arrears from the date of 9th bipartite settlement and to pay such other benefits as are admissible to its members.

3. The Management thereupon filed a preliminary objection inter alia on the ground that there is no relationship of master and servant between the Management and workmen and the Union has no locus to raise a dispute on behalf of the workmen as the workmen are neither the members of Union nor have authorized the Union to file any petition or to raise any dispute on their behalf. It was further pleaded that the provisions of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 (hereinafter referred to as 'the 1970 Act' for short) do not prescribe filing of the petition seeking payment of wages at par with regular employees on the basis of bipartite settlement. It was further pleaded that the Deputy Chief Labour Commissioner has no jurisdiction to deal with the dispute raised before it and the principles of 'equal pay for equal pay' cannot be applied to the contract labour or to persons employed on contract as the nature of responsibilities and duties are totally different.

4. The Union filed a rejoinder to the aforesaid objections. The Deputy Chief Labour Commissioner by an order dated 31.07.2012 inter alia held that in the absence of any restrictive clause in the Act or the Rules prohibiting a Trade Union of serving employees to espouse the cause of contract labour performing the job of State Bank of India, the petition filed under Rule 25(v)(a) of the Rules is maintainable and the Union has locus to maintain the petition on behalf of its workmen. It was further held that the Management is a necessary party to the lis since, the comparison of work is made between the workers of Management and the Contractor and therefore, both the respondents are necessary parties to prove the merits of the claim. Accordingly, the preliminary objections filed on behalf of the Management were rejected.

5. The aforesaid order was challenged by the Management before the learned Single Judge. The learned Single Judge vide impugned order dated 04.03.2014 inter alia held that Management is not a necessary party and there is no provision under the Rules, which makes the Management responsible for payment of wages in the event of non compliance of the conditions prescribed under Rule 25(v)(a) of the Rules by the Contractor. It was further held that Section 21(4) of the Act has no application to the situation where the Contractor may have paid wages but has not complied with the condition imposed by under Rule 25(v)(a) of the Rules a