JUDGMENT :

1. The petitioners have put forth the following prayers:

“a) That this Hon’ble Court be pleased to issue a Writ of Certiorari or a writ in the nature of certiorari or any other appropriate writ, order or direction calling for records relating to the 30 incidental Orders passed between 21st March 2015 to 28th November 2016 by the Learned Labour Court at Pune in 30 identical IDA References annexed above as Exhibits A-1 to A-30 and after going through the legality, validity and propriety thereof be pleased to quash and set aside the same.

(b) That this Hon’ble Court be pleased to declare that the Respondents have engaged in unfair labour practices.

(c) That this Hon’ble Court be pleased to grant the Petitioners reinstatement with full back wages the same as those paid to permanent workmen, at 18% annual compound interest, and all other consequential benefits since the completion of 240 days from their respective dates of first appointment.

(d) That pending the final hearing and disposal of this petition, this Hon’ble Court be pleased to Order the Respondents to pay the Petitioners 50% of the lumpsum amount prayed for in Prayer Clause (c) above, which may be offset against the final relief.

(e) That pending the final hearing and disposal of this petition, this Hon’ble Court be pleased to order the Respondents to pay the Petitioners 50% of the wages presently being paid to permanent workmen at the plant, which may be offset against the final relief.

(f) That pending the final hearing and disposal of this Petition, this Hon’ble Court may be pleased to order the Respondents to give preference to the Petitioners for appointment to any permanent employment vacancies that come up.”

2. In all these writ petitions, a common questions of facts and law are involved affecting 52 petitioners. Each of them had raised an industrial dispute under Section 2-A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (for short, “the 1947 Act”). Each of them has referred to his last disengagement/termination from the service of the respondent. The Conciliation Officer, upon failure of the conciliation proceedings, had submitted his reports. The Appropriate Government passed identical orders of referring the industrial dispute to the Labour Court at Pune. Vide the identical judgments and awards, impugned in these petitions, the Labour Court answered all the Reference cases in the negative.

3. Since all the demand notices, failure reports and the Appropriate Government’s Orders of Reference are identical, I am not required to go into each of the demand notices and such documents, to avoid unnecessary enlarging of this judgment.

4. Identical demand notices were issued by these 52 petitioners on a single day i.e. 23/07/2005. The demands were two-fold viz. (a) that the worker be reinstated in service with continuity and (b) that the worker be paid entire back wages for the period of his unemployment. Copies of these demand notices were served upon the respondent-management and were also forwarded to the Assistant Commissioner of Labour, District Pune. Thereafter, the conciliation proceedings commenced and as the said proceedings failed, the Conciliation Officer submitted his failure report in each of these cases to the Appropriate Government i.e. the Deputy Commissioner of Labour. One such failure report is dated 21/06/2006. The Conciliation Officer exercised his jurisdiction under Section 12(4) of the 1947 Act and caused various conciliation meetings. It is recorded in the report that the management did not participate in the conciliation proceedings. Neither did it oppose the demand notice, nor did it express any view before the Conciliation Officer. It is in the light of such failure report that the Appropriate Government referred the dispute to the Labour Court.

5. In the above backdrop, the Appropriate Government considered the failure report and the documents annexed thereto and passed an order of referring the dispute to the Labour Court, since the Conciliation Off