The main legal point established in the judgment is that a petitioner, having obtained a work order and a license under the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, is entitled to police protection for carrying out its work, especially when faced with obstruction and violence from other contractors.

P. A. Mohammed, J.

1. The petitioner is a private limited company called 'M/s Glasco Carriers Pvt. Ltd.' engaged in the business of dealership in liquified petroleum gas (LPG) under the Indian Oil Corporation (hereinafter called I.O.C.). The substantial prayer in this writ petition is to give a direction to respondents 12 and 13 who are police officials to provide police protection to the petitioner's work of loading and unloading and transportation of LPG cylinders from and to the Indian Bottling Plant of the I. O. C. at Nadakkavu in Udyamperoor.

2. In view of the commissioning of the Bottling Plant at Udayamperoor, I. O. C. expected to bottle and transport more number of LPG cylinders throughout the State. In order to meet this additional demand, I. O. C. decided to enter into contract for transporting of the LPG cylinders. The petitioner made discussions with the officials of the I. O. C. on 11 - 1 - 1994 and offered its willingness to accept the work order as per Ext. P1 letter dated 11-1-1994. By Ext. P2 letter I. O. C. has granted the work order to the petitioner, subject to its execution during the period from 7-12-1994 to 31-10-199. The petitioner thereafter filed an application to the Regional Labour Commissioner, Central, Ernakulam for issue of a licence in respect of the work Accordingly Ext. P3 licence was issued by the Licensing Officer, Ernakulam, Government of India in Form No. VI under S.12(1) of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970. Pursuant to a joint conference held on 15-1-1994 in the office of the Labour Commissioner, Central regarding the engagement of labour in the LPG loading and unloading at Udayamperoor Plant of the I. O. C. the petitioner decided to start the work with effect from 20-1-1994 in execution of Ext. P2 work order. Thereafter the petitioner sent its lorries for loading to the loading place of the plant, but the other contractors resisted loading by the petitioner's truck on the ground of insufficiency of work. However, I. O. C. started supplying minimum 15 truck loads from 12 2-1994, The other contractors frequently created obstructions and when the obstructions continued, the petitioner filed Ext. P6 representation before the 12th respondent who is the Commissioner of Police (City) Ernakulam. However, the police protection was not granted to the petitioner on the ground that the first respondent had produced an interim order of injunction evidenced by Ext. P7 alleged to have been obtained by him from the City Civil Court at Madras in O. S. No. 835 of 1994. It is in that situation the petitioner came before this court with the present writ petition.

3. The petitioner's case for police protection was fully supported by the counsel appearing for the I. O. C., the 8th respondent in this case. In fact, the arguments advanced by the petitioner were endorsed by the eighth respondent. The case of the first respondent is that there is a subsisting contract between him and I. O. C. for loading and unloading work and that contract period will expire only on 31-10-1994 and hence I. O. C. has no power to grant fresh tender to the petitioner. As there is alleged violation of the contract the first respondent appears to have approached the Madras City Civil court and obtained Ext. R1(1) order of temporary injunction in O. S. No.835 of 1994 on 8-4-1994 restraining the I. O. C. from giving the work to the petitioner till the expiry of the tender period in his case.

4. It cannot be said that I. O. C. has no authority or power to appoint additional contractors for doing the loading and unloading work in view of the subsisting contract with the first respondent. It was in order to meet the additional demand due to the commissioning of new bottling plant, Ext. P2 work order was granted to the petitioner. Clause.20 of the Transport Contract Agreement relied on by the petitioner in the petition is thus :

"The Contractor/s shall not have exclusive right to operate truck/s at the Plant/Refi