V. Ramkumar, J.

The short question in this Writ Petition for police protection is as to whether the 2nd respondent Trade Union is entitled to obstruct the loading and unloading work in the small scale industrial unit of the petitioner by name ''Dash Machines".

2. The above unit which is stated to have been started seven years ago is involved in the manufacture of moulded items such as caps, inner lids, electronic choke cover, CFL holder cover etc. According to the petitioner, the nature of work in the said unit involves the burning of plastic granules and moulding the same into various shapes as per the requirements and packing and bundling the finished products for sale. The employees for doing the aforesaid operations are claimed to be the petitioner and four permanent workers.

3. Opposing the Writ Petition, Advocate Sri Jose Kuttiyany, the learned counsel appearing for the 2nd respondent Union made the following submissions before us:

The Industrial Estate at Ollur was started in the year 1957 and from the very inception of the said Industrial Estate, the 2nd respondent Union affiliated to the I.N.T.U.C. is the only trade union working in that Estate. All these years, it was the workers of the 2nd respondent Union who were carrying on the loading and unloading work in all the units including the petitioner's unit on the basis of agreements entered into and Ext.R-2 A which was the last of the agreements was in force till 30-9-2003. Thereafter, the petitioner has been unsuccessfully approaching this Court claiming that the petitioner is not bound to engage the workers of the 2nd respondent Union and that the petitioner has got the right to do the loading and unloading work through his own permanent workers. The petitioner has not challenged Ext.P-3 order of the 3rd respondent rejecting the applications filed by the workers of the petitioner for registration under the Kerala Head Load Workers Act, 1978. Paragraph 25 of the Full Bench decision reported in Raghavan v. Superintendent of Police 1998 (2) K.L.T. 732 will show that any dispute regarding any matter Collected with the provisions of the aforesaid Act or the Rules or Scheme framed there under is to be resolved in accordance with the machinery provided under the said Act and that even while considering the question whether the relief of police protection is to be granted or not the court will take into consideration the relevant facts including the question of any irreparable injury and therefore the petitioner does not deserve any of the reliefs prayed for in this Writ Petition.

4. We are afraid that we cannot agree with the above submissions. The admitted facts leading to the filing of this Writ Petition are the following:

The petitioner's industrial unit is situated in the Major Industrial Estate, Ollur, Thrissur. The said Industrial Estate is situated in the erstwhile Ollur Panchayath area which subsequently got included in the Thrissur Municipal area and presently in the area falling under the Corporation of Thrissur. The Kerala Head Load Workers (Regulation of Employment and Welfare) Scheme, 1983 (hereinafter referred to as "the Scheme") made under Sec. 13 of the Kerala Head Load Workers Act, 1978 ("The 1978 Act" for short) has been extended to the aforesaid area. The State Government has not so far notified the said area to be an "Industrial Area" under Sec.5 of the Kerala Loading and Unloading (Regulation of Wages and Restriction of Unlawful Practices) Act, 2002 ("the 2002 Act" for short) so as to give absolute discretion to the employer to engage workers of his own choice notwithstanding anything contained in the 1978 Act. The issue concerning the question whether the area is covered by the Scheme framed under the 1978 Act and whether Sec. 5 of the 2002 Act can be pressed into service by the employer without a notification covering the said area, were all settled by this Court in Ext.R -2 (C) Judgment dated 1-12-2003 of a Division Bench in Writ Petition (