The main legal point established in the judgment is that the evidence led by the respondent was not sufficient to establish an employer-employee relationship between the parties.

1. These proceedings emanate out of an industrial dispute, raised by the respondent-workman Rudal Rai, which culminated in an Award dated 11th March, 2015, passed by the learned Industrial Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as the “learned Tribunal”).

2. The case, as set out by the respondent-workman in his statement of claim, was that he had been initially engaged, on 15th December, 1985, as a plumber, “on work order”, and was working under the direct control and supervision of the Junior Engineer/Assistant Engineer (JE/AE) and Executive Engineer, and that his services had been terminated with effect from 4th July, 1999, without notice or notice pay, in contravention of Section 25F of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (hereinafter referred to as the “ID Act”). He also contended that daily rated workers in the establishment of the petitioner were being paid the minimum of the time scale, along with all allowances, except increment, from the date of their initial employment till regularisation. He relied on a settlement, dated 2nd December, 2002, between the management and the workers union which, according to him, showed that the management was treating the workers employed on work order at par with muster roll workers, and was extending, to them, all the benefits extended to daily rated workers. Reliance was placed, in this regard, on a judgment, dated 20th May, 2010, of a Division Bench of this court in D.G. Works, CPWD v. Baldev Singh (LPA 300/2007) which, in turn, relied on an earlier decision, also of a Division Bench of this court in PWD v. Satya Pal, 132 (2006) DLT 571. He asserted that there was no contractor between the petitioner and himself, and that he had completed 240 days of work in each year, since his purported employment, by the petitioner, in 1985. He, accordingly, prayed for reinstatement with full back wages and all consequential benefits, with effect from 4th July, 1990, alongwith the minimum of the pay scale of skilled workmen, applying the principle of equal pay for equal work.

3. The petitioner, per contra, contended, in its written statement before the learned Tribunal, that there was no relationship of employer and employee, between the respondent and itself. It was contended that the respondent was engaged on purely contractual basis, and was never paid any salary or allowance. The petitioner asserted that the respondent had been paid on the basis of actual work executed by him, as and when occasion arose. The petitioner also contended that the claim of the respondent, was, in any case, highly belated, as he had approached the Conciliation Officer, challenging his purported termination in 1999, for the first time in 2010.

4. On the basis of the pleadings of the parties, the learned Tribunal framed the following issues as arising for its consideration, vide order dated 4th December, 2012 :

“1. Whether there is relationship of employer and employee between the parties? OPW

2. Whether claimant is a workman as defined u/s 2(s) of Industrial Disputes Act? OPW

3. Whether statement of claim is not maintainable on ground of laches/belated stage? OPM

4. As per terms of reference.”

5. The respondent-workman led his own evidence as WW-1 and led the evidence of B.K. Prasad, General Secretary of the CPWD Mazdoor Union as WW-2. The petitioner examined Sh. Anand Singh, working with it as Executive Engineer, as MW-1.

6. The respondent, as WW-1, filed his evidence by way of affidavit, in which he deposed that he had initially been engaged, on 15th December, 1985, as a plumber on work order, and had performed his duties under the direct control and supervision of the JE/AE and Executive Engineer, and that his services had been terminated with effect from 4th July, 1999. He contended that, though contracting the work of plumber was prohibited by the Ministry of Labour under the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, he had been working with the petitioner from 15th December, 1985 to 3rd July, 1999 “on w