JUDGMENT :

Oral Judgment:

1. This group of petitions challenges four sets of identical awards passed by Labour Courts at Pune on references made to them under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. By the impugned awards, the references, made at the instance of workmen of the Respondent, were answered in the negative by the courts. The second party workmen, who are Petitioners herein, challenge the awards on various grounds.

2. A brief history of the matter, as culled out from the petitions, may be noted as follows :

2A. The Respondent company is one of the leading manufacturers of two and three wheelers in India, having factories at Akurdi and Chakan in Pune and at Waluj in Aurangabad. The present dispute concerns its workmen employed at Akurdi.

2B. Between 1984 and 1997, besides its permanent workmen, the Respondent employed various temporary workmen, their number varying from year to year. (In the years before 1984, the Respondent used to appoint workmen on probation, terminate them later and re-appoint them once again on probation; in due course of time many of these appointees were made permanent.) In 1997, the Respondent had about 6088 permanent workmen and about 4313 temporary workmen.

2C. It is the case of the petitioning workmen that during this period (i.e. 1984 to 1997), the Respondent followed a consistent practice of employing skilled as well as unskilled labour on temporary basis for a maximum period of seven months. After giving breaks to the workmen so employed, the Respondent would appoint other workmen in their place and thereafter, after the latter completed their tenure of upto seven months, re-employ the former. The Respondent had accordingly maintained a pool of about 8000 to 10000 workers and were making temporary appointments from this pool following a rotational pattern. In other words, it is the workmen’s case that though the work in the factory was of perennial nature, it was performed through temporaries from a pool of workers by a rotational system, seeing to it that throughout the relevant period none could complete 240 days of continuous service and thus keeping them away from secure permanent jobs. This led to industrial disputes and complaints of unfair labour practice.

2D. A group of about 700 workmen approached the Industrial Court at Pune through complaints of unfair labour practice, invoking Items 5, 6 and 10 of Schedule IV of the MAHARASHTRA RECOGNITION OF TRADE UNIONS AND PREVENTION OF UNFAIR LABOUR PRACTICES ACT , 1971 (“PULP Act”). The other group of workmen, about 300 of them, instead chose to file letters of demand and initiate conciliation proceedings under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (“ID Act”), upon failure of which, the State Government, as appropriate Government, referred the matters to Labour Courts for adjudication.

2E. In the ULP complaints, the Industrial Court, by way of interim orders, protected the services of about 400 workmen, who were actually in the Respondent’s employment at the time of filing of the complaints. In its final orders on the complaints, the Court allowed claims of permanency of these 400 workmen. So far as the remaining workers, 300 of them, were concerned, it rejected their complaints, holding basically that since their services had already stood terminated, the Court did not have jurisdiction to entertain their complaints; they should have approached Labour Courts with complaints under Item 1 of Schedule IV of the PULP Act challenging their terminations.

2F. Some workmen from this group of 300 workmen thereupon challenged the order of the Industrial Court by writ petitions before this court. Simultaneously, being aggrieved by grant of permanency to 400 workmen, the Respondent company filed cross petition before this court. These petitions were heard by a learned Single Judge of this court, who dismissed the petitions of workmen and allowed the petition of the company.

2G. Being aggrieved, both groups of workmen (i.e. 300 workmen, who had originally failed bef