Point of Law: Opportunity to provide hearing before making any decision was considered to be a basic requirement in court proceeding.

JUDGMENT :

1. Heard Mr. A.M. Tripathi, Mr. R.C. Tiwari, Mr. Y.K. Mishra, learned Counsel for the writ petitioners and Shri Ramesh Kumar Singh, learned Additional Advocate General, assisted by Shri Sanjay Sarin, learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel and Shri Tushar Verma, learned Counsel for the respondents/State.

A. Introduction

2. The present bunch of writ petitions is a classic example of litigious employment, in as much as the Hon’ble Apex Court and this Court had been flooded with numerous petitions from ‘Tube Well Operators’ in the past on several occasion raising several issues relating to their service conditions. This Court also had an opportunity to deal with an issue relating to regularization of these part time Tube Well Operators and has passed a detailed judgment on 23.01.2023 passed in Writ-A-22586 of 2019 (Sanjeevan Lal & 26 Ors. Vs. Sate of U.P, through Principal Secretary Irrigation Lucknow and Ors.) and other connected matters.

3. Although, the issue engaging the attention of this Court in the present bunch of writ petitions is altogether a different issue as juxtaposed to the issue decided by this court in its earlier judgment (supra), however both the cases have a common history. Broadly, stating, the writ petitioners in this bunch of writ petitions were initially appointed as part time Tube Well Operator between the year 1980 to 1990 and subsequently were regularized in due course and most of them as of now have also been superannuated.

B. Brief Background

4. The issue raised and agitated in the above-captioned petitions had its beginning in the year 1992, wherein the State of Uttar Pradesh issued a Government Order dated 20.2.1992, whereby the nomenclature of “Part Time Tube Well Operator” was changed to “Tube Well Assistant” and their honorarium was enhanced from Rs. 299/-per month to Rs. 550/-per month. The other precipitating issue at that point of time had been the decision of the Labour Court in two cases, bearing Case No. 256 of 1988 and Case No. 20 of 1989, which were filed by some “Part Time Tube Well Operators”, before the Labour Court claiming pay parity with regular Tube Well Operators under the provisions of U.P. Industrial Disputes Act 1947.

5. As far as the aforesaid Labour Court cases were concerned, both the aforesaid cases were decided in favour of the “Part Time Tube Well Operators” vide award dated 15.7.1989 and 1.2.1991, respectively, wherein the Labour Court returned a finding that since “Part Time Tube Well Operators” worked just as hard as regular Tube Well Operator, they were entitled to pay parity with regular Tube Well Operators.

6. Not satisfied with the aforesaid award of the Labour Court, the State of Uttar Pradesh challenged the same by filing Writ Petition No. 1502 (S/S) of 1992: Engineer-in-Chief, Irrigation Department, U.P. and others Vs. Makrand Singh and others. Simultaneously, other writ petitions, leading writ petition no. 3558 (S/S) of 1992 : Suresh Chandra Tiwari and others Vs. State of U.P. and others, were also filed before this Court, challenging the aforesaid notification dated 20.2.1992, by which nomenclature of Tube Well Operators was changed to Tubewell Assistants and an honoraria of Rs.500/-per month has been fixed in lieu of pay. A Co-ordinate Bench of this Court has decided the aforesaid writ petitions by a common judgment and order dated 18.5.1994. The operative portion of the order dated 18.5.1994 reads as under :-

“In the result, I allow all the writ petitions except Writ Petition No. 1502 (S/S) of 1992 and quash the Notification dated 20.2.1992 (as contained in Annexure-I to the Writ Petition No. 3558 (S/S) of 1992) by which nomenclature of the petitioners has been changed to that of tubewell assistants and honoraria of Rs.550/-per month has been fixed. The opposite parties are directed to pay all the petitioners the same emoluments i.e. in the same scale of p