The court confirmed that permanent employment requires formal appointment procedures, and mere long service does not grant entitlement to regularisation without mandated legal protocols.

JUDGMENT :

M.A. ABDUL HAKHIM, J.

1. The Petitioner is challenging Ext.P3 Award of the Industrial Tribunal, Palakkad, in favour of twenty numbers of Workmen in I.D. No.10/2014 (Old No.48/1995). The Petitioner is the Executive Engineer, Irrigation Division, Malampuzha Dam of the State Government. The Petitioner is the Management in I.D. No.10/2014. The Respondent No.1 is the Trade Union which represented the Respondents Nos.2 to 21/Workmen in I.D. No.10/2014 before the Industrial Tribunal. Respondent No.5 died during the pendency of the Writ Petition, and the Additional Respondent Nos.22 to 24 were impleaded as his legal representatives.

2. The issue referred for adjudication to the Tribunal was whether the denial of permanency of the employment to the Workmen who were the garden workers of Malampuzha Dam is justifiable or not.

3. Since the Management did not appear before the Tribunal, the Tribunal passed an ex parte Award dated 09.01.1997 in favour of the Workmen. The Management filed O.P. No.35899/2001 challenging the said ex parte Award, and this Court passed Ext.P1 judgment dated 11.11.2013 setting aside the ex parte Award dated 09.01.1997 and remitted the I.D. back to the Tribunal for fresh consideration.

4. The claim of the Workmen before the Tribunal was that they had been working in Malampuzha garden since August 1992 under the direct supervision of the Garden Curator of the Management. The Executive Engineer and Assistant Executive Engineer have been supervising their work. During their continuous employment, the Management executed an Agreement with the Workmen for the convenient allotment of the work and also for the safe custody of the implements provided by the Management. The Management published a newspaper advertisement on 28.10.1993, inviting persons who were working in the garden and other local persons who were willing to work in the garden to report at the office of the garden on 29.10.1993 for preparing the list of workers. The Workmen submitted applications in response to the advertisement. Since there was no response from the Management, the Workmen approached this Court by filing O.P. No.17103/1993, and the Management was directed to consider and pass orders on the applications of the Workmen. On the inaction of the Management, the Workmen again approached this Court by filing O.P. No.7899/1994, and this Court directed the Management to consider the Representation of the Workmen as per the judgment dated 14.06.1994. Since the Management did not consider the Representation of the Workmen, the Respondent No.1 initiated conciliation proceedings by submitting a Petition before the District Labour Officer (DLO), and on failure of the conciliation proceedings, the present Industrial Dispute was raised.

5. The contention of the Management before the Tribunal was that the Workmen were not directly engaged by the Management. They have been engaged by the Management through a labour contractor. The Workmen were never paid any salary or wages by the Management. No order of appointment was issued to the Workmen. The names of the Workmen were not reflected anywhere in the office records. There is no master – servant relationship between the Management and the Workmen. The Management will not come under the definition of an industry defined under the Industrial Disputes Act, and hence, the Reference is incompetent.

6. The Tribunal passed Ext.P3 Award dated 27.10.2014 in favour of the Workmen, holding that the Workmen are entitled to be regularised in service provided they have not completed the age of 55 years as on 14.06.1994 (which is the date of the judgment in O.P. No.7899/1994) with al