JUDGMENT

1. Heard Mr. S.N. Sarma, the learned Senior Counsel assisted by Mrs. A. Bhattacharya, the learned counsel for the petitioners. Also heard Mr. P.K. Tiwari, the learned Senior Counsel assisted by Mr. R.K. Dev Choudhury, the learned counsel for the respondent Nos. 1 to 11. None appears for the respondent Nos. 12 to 19 though they have filed counter affidavit.

2. The petitioner No. 1 is the Subansiri Lower H.E. Project Contract basis Workers Union (the Union) and the petitioner Nos. 2 & 3 are its President and General Secretary respectively. The Union is registered under the Trade Union Act, 1926 under registration No. 2216 dated 18.08.2007 and comprises of about 300 numbers of workers as its members.

3. The case of the petitioners is that the Government of India initiated a Hydro Electric Project at lower Subansiri river (The Project) for generation of 2,000 Megawatt electricity by investing several crores of rupees and accordingly, various employees under the National Hydro Electric Power Corporation Limited (NHPC) (Respondent No.1), which is a Government of India enterprise, were employed under its supervision. According to the petitioners, since the inception of the Project, the respondent authorities engaged about 300 workers in technical and non-technical permanent posts on contractual basis from time to time for rendering service under the respondent No. 1.

4. On 11.09.2006, a Memorandum of Settlement (MoS) was arrived at under Section 12(3) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (Act of 1947) between the management of the Project and the workman engaged on contract basis. The purpose of the MoS was for sorting out various demands raised by the members of the Union, which included enhancement of wages and seeking permanent employment amongst others. As per the MoS, it was agreed that a Committee will be formed to make a recommendation for increase in the rate of wages. The Committee will comprise of 3 representatives each from the management and from the workers. Further, the Committee will resolve the issue on or before 05.10.2006. In respect of the issue regarding permanent employment of the existing workers, the same was to be submitted in another platform and to be decided later on. Thereafter, on 12.07.2010 at the instance of the Assistant Labour Commissioner (Central), Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was reached between the General Secretary of the Union and the NHPC Contractors Association, Gerukamukh in the presence of NHPC on the demand with regard to providing of bonus as per the Payment of Bonus (Amendment) Ordinance, 2007. Thereafter, a meeting was held in the Office of the Assistant Labour Commissioner (Central) Guwahati on 10.11.2010 on a dispute regarding non-payment of bonus to the contractual workers engaged in the establishment of NHPC, Gerukamukh. However, the issue could not be settled and therefore, it was resolved that the matter be taken up before higher authorities. The members of the petitioner Union having rendered services for about 10 to 12 years on contractual basis were legitimately expecting that their services would be regularized in terms of the MoS arrived at on 11.09.2006 against various technical and non-technical permanent post, which were lying vacant. With such expectation, they were paying their statutory dues like bonus and provident fund. However, to their surprise, the respondent NHPC vide Communications dated 08.08.2014, 11.08.2014, 12.08.2014, 19.08.2014 and 20.09.2014 [Annexure 6 (1) to (10)] informed the contractors, who are arrayed as respondent Nos. 12 to 19 in this writ petition that the contract work was going to expire on 30.09.2014 and in view of various issues, due to which there was much delay in the execution of the project, the work will not be extended beyond the given date. It was further indicated that NHPC has taken a decision that the contract work may be awarded to potential bidders through open t