The court upheld the entitlement of petitioners to permanent employment status under the Tamil Nadu Permanent Status Act after completing 480 days of service, highlighting the necessity of adhering to due process in employment termination.

COMMON ORDER :

HEMANT CHANDANGOUDAR, J.

The challenge in all these writ petitions is to the order dated 09.02.2006 passed by the second respondent. By the said order, the petitioners, who were working as casual labourers in the Chennai Port Trust, were terminated from canteen service.

2. Since the issues involved in all these writ petitions are common, they were heard together and are disposed of by this common order.

3. The petitioners were appointed as attenders in the Chennai Port Trust Industrial Employees Co-operative Canteen Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “the canteen” for the sake of brevity) on 13.10.1997. The petitioners contend that their appointments were made by the Chennai Port Trust through its nominated President. The first respondent was constituted under Section 42 of the Major Port Trusts Act, 1963, and was mandatorily required to provide certain essential services to its workers. Further, in terms of Section 46 of the Factories Act , there is a statutory obligation on the part of the first respondent to provide canteen facilities, as more than 2,500 employees were employed as on the relevant date.

4. The petitioners further contend that an official of the first respondent has always functioned as the President or Special Officer of the canteen; that the canteen society was established with the permission of the first respondent; that the canteen is situated within the premises of the first respondent; and that the Board of the second respondent society was approved by the first respondent. In these circumstances, the petitioners, who had put in more than eight years of service, were unilaterally terminated by the impugned order without following due process of law.

5. The Chennai Port Trust Industrial Employees Canteen Workers Welfare Association filed W.P. No. 6872 of 2001 seeking to treat its members, i.e., the employees of the canteen, as regular employees of the first respondent, with all attendant monetary and service benefits from the date of their initial appointment, on par with regular employees of the first respondent. This Court, by order dated 24.08.2005, allowed the writ petition and held that the workmen employed in the canteen ipso facto became regular employees of the first respondent. It was further directed that permanent employees of the canteen be treated as direct employees of the first respondent, and that temporary employees of the second respondent society be absorbed as permanent employees from the date on which they became eligible, in accordance with the rules and regulations of the first respondent/Port Trust. The said order has attained finality, as the challenge to it was rejected by the Division Bench as well as by the Hon’ble Supreme Court.

6. Mr. Balan Haridas, learned counsel for the petitioners, submitted that similarly placed workmen who were working on a temporary basis in the second respondent canteen were absorbed as permanent employees pursuant to the order in W.P. No. 6872 of 2001. Therefore, the termination of the petitioners without following due process of law is arbitrary and discriminatory. He submitted that the petitioners are entitled to be absorbed or made permanent on par with those employees who were regularised pursuant to the said order.

7. The learned counsel for the petitioners further submitted that the provisions of the Tamil Na