The main legal point established in the judgment is that employees can acquire the status of permanent employees under the proviso to Clause (vi) of Order 2 of the M. P. Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1961, even without the existence of clear vacancies or satisfactory service on specific posts.

S. K. KULSHRESTHA, J.

( 1 ) ALL these petitions challenge orders identical to the order dated November 27, 1999 (Annexure P/5) passed by the Labour Court and order Annexure P/7 dated February 23, 2000 passed by the Industrial Court affirming the said order Annexure P/5 in Civil Appeal no. 260/99/mpir in the case of the employee budha Rao Magarde in W. P. No. 3510/2000 and were, therefore, analogously heard and are being decided by this common order on the basis of the facts of W. P. No. 3510/2000 / engineer-in-Chief, P. H. E. D. and others v. Budha Rao Magarde and others. The employee in each of the above cases had approached the labour Court under Section 31 (3) of the M. P. Industrial Relations Act, 1960 (MPIR Act for short) for seeking classification on the post on which he had been working in the Kolar Project of the petitioner Public Health Engineering department. It is not disputed that the employees were inducted on daily wages from 1989 onwards till 1993.

( 2 ) THE case of the employees before the labour Court was that being an engineering undertaking, the activities of the petitioner public Health Engineering Department were governed by the provisions of the MPIR Act.

( 3 ) THE undertaking had sanctioned 262 posts in the year 1989 and the employees were engaged on daily wages against the said posts and continued till a notice was issued proposing to terminate their services. It was contended before the Labour Court that since the employees had rendered continuous service on the posts which were continued and there was foreseeable likelihood of the project being completed, their service could not be terminated, much less without following the procedure laid down in Chapter VA of the industrial Disputes Act, 1947 and without payment of compensation in accordance with section 25-F thereof. It was also submitted before the Labour Court that these employees having worked on the posts Continuously for more than six months, had even otherwise acquired the status of permanent employees under the provisions of Order 2 at the Standard standing orders for all the undertakings in the state, appended as Annexure to the M. P. Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) rules, 1963, and, therefore, they were entitled to be classified as permanent employees and given all benefits accruing from the said status. The claim was resisted by the petitioner undertaking inter alia on the ground that these persons had been engaged intermittently as per the requirement on daily wages temporarily in connection with temporary increase in the work and, therefore, their services had not been continued against any vacant post. It was also stated that the termination notices issued under the direction of the State had been stayed by the state Government itself and, therefore, no cause survived in favour of the employees to claim any relief from the Labour Court. It was also stated that sincethese employees were being paid from the contingency fund and had not been employed against any vacant posts, they were not entitled to seek classification as permanent employees and, therefore, their applications deserved to be rejected. 4. Initially, the Labour Court had allowed the claims of the employees by order dated June 30, 1998 (Annexure P/3) for classification with effect from two years prior to the date of applications and for payment of salary to them accordingly, but in appeal, the Industrial Court on noticing that the Labour Court has passed cyclostyled orders which did not depict due application of mind and the proceedings did not evidence that the parties had been given due opportunity of hearing, remanded the case, by order dated December 18, 1998 (Annexure p/4 ). After the remand of the cases to the labour Court, the counsel for the parties stated that they did not want to lead any further evidence and after hearing the arguments, impugned order Annexure P/5 was passed by which the Labour Court, in each case, has quashed the termination notice notwit

Click Here to Read the rest of this document