ORDER

1. This petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India has been filed challenging the award dated 21.10.2013 (Annexure P/1) passed by the Central Government Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court (hereinafter referred to as ‘Tribunal’) mainly on the ground that the finding given by the Tribunal is illegal, erroneous and contrary to the evidence available on record. The award is beyond the scope of terms of the Reference and contrary to law laid down by the Supreme Court in the case of Steel Authority of India Limited and others v. National Union Waterfront Workers and others reported in (2001) 7 SCC 1. The facts of the case and the issue involved in the case lie in a narrow compass as would be clear from the narration of facts, which are as under :--

2. The petitioner Corporation is a statutory Corporation constituted under the Food Corporation of India Act, 1964 (for brevity ‘Act, 1964’). It deals in the business of food grains and it also imports, procures, stores and distributes the food grains throughout the country. The petitioner has offices and depots in all over the country and for the purpose of effective supervision, they have established Zonal Offices, Regional Offices and District Offices in various parts of the country. The present dispute relates to Vidisha Depot which comes under the supervision and control of District Office of the Corporation at Bhopal (MP).

3. According to the petitioner, prior to 1989, to manage the affairs of the work carrying out by the petitioner, they used to acquire hands and as such they engage transport contractors on contract basis giving them entire responsibility to find out their own labourers from the open market to carry out work of the petitioner Corporation. The petitioner Corporation had no administrative or disciplinary control over such labourers engaged by the contractor. The petitioner in the said system used to pay an amount to the contractor in the head of ‘handling charges’ per bag but not directly to the labourers engaged for their work.

4. According to the petitioner-Corporation, in the contract system they had no direct connection with the labours engaged by the contractor and it was the duty of the contractor to pay the wages to the labourers engaged in the work assigned by the petitioner-Corporation to the contractor.

5. The contract system was not accepted by the Labour Unions and as such they raised demand to introduce some other system and a meeting between the petitioner and Labour Union known as Food Corporation of India Workers Union conducted on 26.9.1989. In the said meeting Mate system was introduced in various depots of petitioner including Vidisha depot.

6. In the Mate system, the Worker Unions were required to nominate mate in each godown/depot, who will in turn execute an agreement with the District Manager under whose jurisdiction the depot falls. Under such a system, the nomination of the labourers made by the Worker Unions authorized by the petitioner and as such the said labour (Mate) was responsible to work in the said depot. The Mate used to be paid wages by the contractor. According to the petitioner, the Mate steps into the shoes of the contractor because the amount for handling bags used to be paid to the contractor considering the number of bags but not per labourer engaged, but Mate was also under obligation to comply the requirement of relevant Labour Law like contract labour.

7. As per the claim raised by the respondents, they were employed with the contractor Ashok Kumar Jain for 2-3 years and the said contract was thereafter awarded to M/s V.R. Enterprises under whom the workers were working, but in view of the notification issued by the Government of India on 1.11.1990 the contract system was abolished in the petitioner-Corporation. Resultantly, the services of the labourer were terminated by the contractor. The petitioner-Corporation had its representative Union i.e. Food Corporation of India Workers Union, but that union