A.J. Shastri, J.

1. The petitioners by way of present petition has challenged the legality and validity of the award dated 9.4.2004 (Exh. 93) passed by the Central Industrial Tribunal, Ahmedabad, in Reference ITC No. 77 of 2001. The said challenge is limited to the extent by which the learned Tribunal has directed the petitioner Corporation to take the concerned persons in regular employment of the petitioner Corporation and treat them as regular permanent employees of the Corporation with all benefits of continuity. A further grievance is also made towards the direction given by the learned Tribunal to the petitioner Corporation to fix wages of the respondents at par with permanent confirmed employees by treating them as regular employees of the Corporation and paying them all other benefits amenable to permanent employees of the Corporation. It is qua this award of the learned Tribunal that the present petition is filed by invoking jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India.

2. Before adverting to the main challenge, few facts are required to be considered which have generated the present litigation:

2.1 The petitioner Corporation, a limited company under the provisions of Companies Act, 1956, is engaged in exploration and production of petroleum products like oil and natural gas having establishments and installations spread over the entire country and having one of its installations at Cambay in the State of Gujarat.

2.2 The petitioner Corporation, for the purpose of carrying on its activities which are of intermittent nature or casual nature or primary or essential functions or indefinite or indeterminable nature or uncertain or varying frequency or for which it is not practicable or feasible to engage fixed number of persons on permanent basis or on full time basis, awards contracts for getting such work executed by the contractor himself or through of his employees.

2.3 For the purpose of carrying on the work at Cambay Project, the petitioner Corporation had awarded a contract for getting certain specified jobs executed through the contractor. In pursuance thereof, the contractor to whom the contract was awarded considered it appropriate to get the works executed through its members since it was a cooperative society. As a result thereof, the concerned persons were deployed in the Cambay Project by the respondent Society (Opponent No. 2 in the proceedings before the Tribunal) being members or employees of the society. The concerned persons were under the control, administration and management of the contractor i.e. respondent Society. The concerned persons were neither selected nor recruited nor engaged nor deployed nor supervised by the petitioner Corporation and there was no relationship much less of employer and employee relationship between the petitioner Corporation and the concerned persons. The petitioner Corporation was not exercising any power or authority much less of supervision, administration, management or control over the concerned persons in any manner. The concerned persons were not performing permanent or perennial nature of work and were not subject to any administrative or disciplinary or financial action or control by the petitioner Corporation. Payment of their wages was also being done by the respondent Society and not by the petitioner Corporation. The concerned persons were not selected or recruited by the petitioner Corporation nor they were engaged after complying with any procedure and requirements prescribed in the recruitment regulations of the petitioner Corporation.

2.4 The scope of work specified in the subject contract dated 1/7/1998 was essentially of maintenance of electronics and other communication equipments including jobs like day to-day maintenance of various electronics test measuring equipments to assist in the regular and day-to-day maintenance, maintenance of EPABX Telephone Cabling Network etc. The system installed in the project was di