Industrial Disputes Act, 1947: Regularization – AppellantGovernment undertaking employed large number of employees to carry out its business operations – A dispute arose as to whether these 955 employees were employees of the said undertaking or they were employed by the contract labourers society to work in the undertaking to carry out their business operations and whether they were entitled to claim regularization of their services as its employees – Held: The Tribunal, on appreciating the evidence in its original jurisdiction, rightly concluded that firstly, the agreement with the contract labourer for doing the work had come to an end in 1991 and thereafter it was not renewed – Secondly, all the 955 workers were being paid wages directly by the appellant – Thirdly, the nature of work, which these workers were performing, was of a perennial nature in the set up of the appellant – Fourthly, all 955 workmen were performing their duties as permanent workers; and lastly, no evidence was adduced by the appellant in rebuttal to prove their case against the workers’ Union – High Court was right in affirming the findings recorded by the Tribunal – Interference with the concurrent findings of the two courts not called for.
Dismissing the appeals, the Court
HELD: The very fact that the appellant failed to adduce any evidence to prove their case, the Industrial Tribunal was justified in drawing adverse inference against them. Indeed, nothing prevented the appellant from adducing evidence to prove the real state of affairs prevailing in their set up relating to these workers. It was, however, not done by the appellant for the reasons best known to them. It was not the case of the appellant that they were not afforded any opportunity to adduce evidence and nor any attempt was made by the appellant to adduce any evidence in the writ petitions or in the intra court appeals and lastly even in these appeals to prove their case. That apart, the four findings of fact recorded against the appellant by the Industrial Tribunal were based on sufficient evidence adduced by the workers’ Union. Indeed, these findings being concurrent in nature are binding on this Court while hearing appeals under Article
136 of the Constitution. [Paras 19, 20] [903-C-F]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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