Point of Law: However, wherever it is found that similarly situated workmen are regularized by the employer itself under some scheme or otherwise and the workmen in question who have approached Industrial/Labour Court are at par with them, direction of regularization in such cases may be legally justified, otherwise, non-regularization of the left over workers itself would amount to invidious discrimination qua them in such cases and would be violative of Article 14 of the Constitution. Thus, the Industrial adjudicator would be achieving the equality by upholding Article 14, rather than violating this constitutional provision

JUDGMENT :

J.B.PARDIWALA, J.

1. As both the captioned appeals arise from a common judgment and order passed by a learned Single Judge of this Court, those were taken up for hearing analogously and are being disposed of by this common judgment and order.

2. For the sake of convenience, the Letters Patent Appeal No.930 of 2017 is treated as the lead matter.

3. This appeal under clause 15 of the Letters Patent is at the instance of the original respondents Nos.1 to 4 (workmen) of a writ application filed by the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (original writ applicant) and is directed against the judgment and order passed by a learned Single Judge of this Court dated 24th April 2017 in the Special Civil Application No.13744 of 2004.

4. The facts giving rise to this appeal may be summarized as under :

5. The appellants herein were engaged by a contractor appointed by the ONGC to undertake the work of contract at the Cambay Project. It appears that the 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 thought fit to get the works executed through the members of a cooperative society. The appellants herein are the members of the said cooperative society. The appellants were deployed in the Cambay Project being members of the society.

6. It appears that the appellants herein raised a dispute through the respondent – society on the issue of improper and unjustified construction and the same was treated by the appropriate government as an industrial dispute. The said dispute was ordered to be referred for adjudication to the Industrial Tribunal (Central) by the appropriate Government. Upon making the order of reference dated 6th September 2001 by the appropriate government, the same culminated into the Reference (ITC) No.77 of 2001. The Tribunal adjudicated the reference and partly allowed the same. The operative part of the order passed by the Industrial Tribunal reads thus:

“ORDER

(1) This reference is partly allowed.

(2) Within 30 days of declaration of this Award, the first party institute O.N.G.C. Cambay Project is ordered to reinstate the concerned employees of the reference (1) Sharadkumar L. Pandya, (2) Shri Rajubhai G. Rathod, (3) Shri Kanubhai N. Dafda and (4) Kamleshbhai M. Parmar in the First Party no.l O.N.G.C. Cambay Project by considering them as the Regular Employees with consequential benefit.

(3) The First party No. l ONGC is also directed to fix the Notional pay of the concerned employees by Considering them to be the regular employees and within 30 days of declaration of the Award they shall be given the said pay and the consequential benefit available to the regular employee from the date of reinstatement.

(4) By reinstating the concerned employees they shall be given the benefits of the regular employees and any orders for payment arrears for the period prior to that or for the intervening period is not passed. Therefore the Institute will not be required to make any payment to them.

(5) But if the Award is not implemented within 30 days of being declared under such circumstances after completion of the said period they will be entitled to get benefit as per the Award and the Institute will accordingly be required to pay the said benefits.”

7. The Corporation being dissatisfied with the aforesaid award passed by the Tribunal, thought fit to challenge the same before this Court by filing the Special Civil Application No.13744 of 2004. The learned Single Judge thought fit to modify the award passed by the Tribunal by awarding lumpsum compensation in terms of money to the four appellants herein.

8. We take notice of the following findings recorded by the learned Single Judge in its impugned judgment and order :

[1] The Corporation is merely a principal employer registered under Section 7 of the Contract Act. The contractor holds a valid licence under Section 12 of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abol