Completion of 480 days of continuous service in 24 calendar months entitles a workman to permanent status under the Act, irrespective of the employer's action or direction by the competent authority.

M. VENUGOPAL, J.

1. The Petitioner has focussed the present Writ of Mandamus praying originally before a Learned Single Judge of this Court for directing the Respondents to pay her family pension, family benefit fund and other terminal benefits including gratuity and also to provide employment to her on compassionate ground.

2. It is not in dispute that the Petitioner is the wife of the deceased Raju, who worked as a Contract Labour in the Civil Section of Power House at Mettur Dam under various Contractors from 01.12.1991 to 30.04.1999. Also that he worked as a Helper in Tamilnadu Electricity Board till his demise on 23.11.2003. The Tamilnadu Electricity Board had not passed orders to make the petitioner's husband as a permanent employee. Subsequently, the Petitioner projected a claim for the retirement benefits on the basis that her deceased husband Raju ought to be treated as a permanent employee of Tamilnadu Electricity Board and also made a claim for Compassionate Appointment to her daughter Valarmathi.

3. The Respondents/Tamilnadu Electricity Board resisted the claim of the Petitioner by contending that her husband Raju was not a permanent employee of the Tamilnadu Electricity Board and therefore the benefits of the Tamil Nadu Industrial Establishments (Conferment of Permanent Status to Workmen) Act, 1981 were not conferred. As such, the Petitioner is not entitled to claim the relief sought for in the Writ Petition. Furthermore, it is the stand of the Respondents/Tamilnadu Electricity Board that the deceased Raju had not satisfied the ingredients of the aforesaid Act in order to claim permanency.

4. When the Writ Petition was taken up for arguments on 08.02.2012, the Learned Single Judge during the course of arguments entertained a doubt about the correctness of the view taken by another Learned Single Judge of this Court in the decision of S.Vijayalakshmi Vs. Tamilnadu Water Supply and Drainage Board (represented by its managing Director, Chennai) reported in 2005(3) L.L.N.706 wherein in paragraphs 4 and 5, it is held as follows:

“A bare perusal of the aforesaid provision makes it clear that such provision casts an obligation on the employer to confer permanent status on an employee who has completed 480 days work in course of two years. It is of course true that during the life time of the husband of the Petitioner, no such permanent status was actually conferred by any order of the management. It is also true that jurisdiction has been conferred on the inspector to conduct enquiry if necessary to find out whether an employee has completed 480 days or not. However, when facts are not in dispute, merely because no such enquiry had been conducted by the inspector, the Petitioner's husband cannot be denied the benefits of the Act. In view of the mandatory nature of the provision, it shall be taken that an employee who had completed 480 days in a period of two years was permanent. This view receives considerable support from the decision reported in S.Gandhimathi V.Deputy Registrar of cooperative Society (MILK) Tirunelveli and others (2003(3) L.L.N.743)

5. Once it is held that the deceased employee was in law entitled to the benefit of acquisition of permanent status, any consequential benefit cannot be denied to the widow on death of such person or merely because during the life time of the employee no such permanency had been “actually conferred”.

Therefore, the Learned Single Judge, during the course of hearing of the Writ Petition, opined that for considering the public importance involved, it would be better that the said question is to be examined by a Larger Bench and framed the following question for reference.

“Whether a workman, who has completed 480 days of continuous service in a period of 24 calendar months, would become automatically a permanent employee under the employer or he will become a permanent employee only on conferment of permanent status either by the employer on his own or on a di