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Judgment
Shampa Dutt (Paul), J.:
The writ application has been preferred challenging an award dated 20.11.2024 passed by the Learned Central Government Industrial Tribunal at Kolkata in Reference no. 49 of 2013.
Vide the impugned award, the Learned Tribunal passed an award as follows:-
“So, in the absence of documentary evidence this Tribunal is not inclined to rely on the inconsistent and self-contradictory oral evidence given by W.W.1 under oath before the Tribunal.
Nothing has come on record to show that BSNL engaged or engages casual labours directly and it being a Central Govt. enterprise does not adhere to Minimum Wages Act., 1948 and did not pay minimum Central or State Govt. rate of wages to its casual employees or that Telephone Mechanics were allowed to engage casual unlisted workers and they were paid by S.D.E.T. to make payment to those unlisted casual workers.
Nevertheless, this Tribunal is of view, if BSNL gets its work done through any casual employee engaged by it directly, or through contractor, if any, then it is bound to adhere to Minimum Wages Act, 1948 and it being a Central Govt. Undertaking, it is bound to pay minimum rate of wages fixed by the Central Govt. from time to time to its casual employees and it cannot evade its statutory liabilities imposed by Minimum Wages Act, 1948 towards its casual employees and avoid payment to its casual employees the wages at minimum rate fixed by Central Govt. from time to time.
In view of the above Reference No.49 of 2013 is disposed of and award to that effect is passed.”
The petitioner’s case is that the petitioner Union is duly registered under the Trade Union Act, 1926 having registration no. 25716.
The workmen are unlisted workers under BSNL West Bengal Circle under different sub divisions like Basirhat, Bongaon, Barasat, Habra etc. and their nature of work was primarily of landline maintenance, cable joint repair, jointer helper, Cable Joint Maintenance, WLL Programming NTC, VPT, Providing WLL prepaid, WLL set repair and maintenance, Night Guard, sweeper etc. and have been performing their job/duties from the date of their respective engagements as will be evident from the chart submitted along with the representations made before the Labour Commissioner.
The Respondent no.1 is the principal employer of the workmen in reference and engaged in the business of providing telecom service and it is a central government's enterprise. The respondent no.1 also comes under the definition of 'employer' under section 2(e) of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 and it is a schedule employment under Minimum of Wages Act, 1948.
The employees working under the supervision and control of the Respondent No.1 Company are entitled to receive / get the minimum wages as declared by the Central Government time to time.
In their course of employment the workmen were sent to several offices by the Management as well as several clients/customers of the BSNL issued certificates as well as letters to the management appreciating the work of the workmen.
The petitioner time and again placed the demands and grievances of the workmen before the respondent no.1 but even after repeated request did not arrange to pay amount equal to the rate of minimum wages declared by the central government time to time for the employees / labourer appointed by the telecom mechanics time to time.
Since the respondent no.1 never paid any heed to the correspondences and request, the union had no other alternative but to raise dispute to the Deputy Chief Labour Commissioner (Central), Kolkata by their letter dated 02.02.2012 enclosing therewith a membership list of Basirhat SDCA, Barasat SDCA, Bongaon SDCA as also Habra SDCA.
The management vide their letter dated 06.07.2012 addressed to the Dy. Chief Labour Commissioner (Central) intimated him that as per their records no labour has been engaged from the list received from the union side. The Respondent no.1 again vide their letter dated 26.11.2012 intimated and stated to the authority that for their convenience, the telephone mechanics might have used the same labourer in different sites as and when required. The external labours have not got any money from BSNL authority by their own name and the Telephone Mechanics use them as per requirement and might have paid them from the maintenance fund allotted. The Opposite Party also submitted a list of WLL contractors those who are presently working for providing WLL as approved contractors under the jurisdiction of DE/Barasat.
The management handed over the payment sheet of listed casual labour which are self explanatory about the discrimination between the listed and unlisted casual workers in respect of payment though the both category of employees were / are doing same nature of job.
The Office of the Labour Commissioner tried to conciliate between the parties and also conducted several joint meetings/conciliation proceedings but due to adamant and uncompromising attitude of the Management no compromise could be arrived and as such a failure report was submitted by the Deputy Chief Labour Commissioner (C), Kolkata on 10.05.13.
The petitioner claims that the provisions of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 does not make any differences between the listed casual workers and unlisted casual workers and also the on-roll employees of the scheduled employment. Act says any employee who is engaged in the scheduled employment will get the benefits of Minimum Wages Act. But in the instant case the Opposite Party has deliberately violated the provisions of Minimum Wages Act, 1948 by not paying the minimum rates of wages declared by the Central Government time to time.
Ultimately, the conciliation proceeding ended in a failure and the said Deputy Chief Labour Commissioner (C), Kolkata submitted his failure report on 10.05.2013. While sending his report the Deputy Chief Labour Commissioner Labour Commissioner (C), Kolkata specifically observed as follows:-
"The Circle Secretary, BSNL Unlisted Casual Works Union vide letter dated 2.2.2012 has raised an industrial dispute in respect of unlisted casual workers working under BSNL, West Bengal Telecom Circle within Basirhat BSNL, Barasat, Habra & Bongaon SDCA, North 24 Parganas demanding that, the unlisted casual workers must be considered as listed labour, the benefit of minimum wages declared by the Central Government must be given in favour of the unlisted casual labour and additional wages must be given for additional works etc. The union further contending that these unlisted casual workmen are working for 10/15 years in BSNL and prayed before this authority for intervention of this office in regard to fulfilment of their demands"
Considering the failure report the appropriate government referred the matter to the learned Central Government Industrial Tribunal cum Labour Court, Kolkata on the issues as referred in the order of reference dated 05.09.2013 (Para 23 herein).
Finally the award was passed.
Both parties have filed their respective affidavits. In the affidavit-in-opposition filed by the respondent no.1, the respondent no.1 has denied the claim of the petitioner and has further stated that the workmen utilized for day to day maintenance as per the requirement and need of the field staff engaged on their personal capacity to carry out the job assigned to them, is not the responsibility of the respondent no.1 and BSNL is in no way concerned about their engagement as well as their wages as declared by the central govt. Therefore, the prayer of the petitioner union is not maintainable in the eye of law.
In reply the petitioner has reiterated their own case and have stated that the statement of the respondent/BSNL is not correct and has been stated only to prejudice the parties.
Written notes have been filed on behalf of both the parties.
The petitioners have reiterated their own case, as made out in the written notes, but no judgment has been relied upon.
The respondents have reiterated their own case, as made out in the written notes.
On hearing the learned counsels for the parties and on perusal of the materials on record it appears that one of the documents relied upon by the petitioner is a work order issued by the Sub Divisional Engineer, Canning Telephone Exchange on behalf of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (page 149 of the writ application) wherein it appears that M/s. Safikul Alam has been requested to provide some village connection in North 24 Parganas from the list of Bashirhad Sub-Division. Vide the said letter, the said M/s Safikul Alam was asked to carry out the work as early as possible. The petitioner herein admittedly is an unlisted casual workers’ union.
On perusal of the impugned award, this Court finds that the learned Tribunal, vide the impugned award, decided the following issues:-
“By order No. L-40011/52/2013 -IR(DU) dated 05-09-2013, the Central Government, Ministry of Labour in exercise of power conferred sub-section 1(d) and sub-section 2(A) of section 10 of Industrial Dispute Act, 947 has referred the following disputes to this Tribunal for adjudication:-
"Whether the action of management of BSNL, West Bengal Telecom Circle, 1, Council House Street, Kolkata-700001 in not paying enough maintenance money to the telephone mechanics, so that they are able to pay at least wages notified by the Central Government from time to time to the external labours/unlisted casual labours whenever they are engaged by them occasionally is justified? To that relief the workmen are entitled to?”
The learned Tribunal in the impugned award observed as follows:-
“On the other hand BSNL has declined to adduce any evidence. No document whatsoever have been exhibited either by the union which has raised the dispute and by BSNL, though in the record I find union has filed documents as per list and which it has failed to exhibit for reasons best known to it.”
In the present case M/s Safikul Alam the General Secretary of the petitioner no. 1 who raised the dispute could not produce any documents/voucher in support of their case.
The Learned Tribunal further observed as follows:-
“He stated the other concerned employees are working under S.D.E.T., Basirhat, Bangaon, Barasat and Habra. Every Sub-Division has separate Sub-Divisional Engineer Telecom. The other concerned casual workers were also paid through vouchers. Those vouchers were of BSNL. Unfortunately, he has failed to produce those vouchers. He has stated in Basirhat Sub-Division there were 23 casual employees. In Habra there were 13-14 casual, in Barasat there were 12 casual and in Bongaon there were 17-18 casual employees.”
Finally, the impugned award was passed.
The petitioner’s union is admittedly an “unlisted” caused workers union.
The document at page 149 to the writ application is addressed to the Circle Secretary of the petitioner union. There is neither any contract nor any agreement in favour of the petitioner, who prima facie were asked to carry out certain works on work basis.
Thus the learned tribunal decided the reference against the petitioner.
The bold portion (2nd last Para) at page 4 of the impugned award appears to be an observation of the tribunal.
As such the impugned award dated 20.11.2024 passed by the Learned Central Government Industrial Tribunal at Kolkata, requires no interference being in accordance with law.
WPA 22910 of 2025 is thus dismissed.
Applications, if any, connected thereto stand disposed of consequently.
Interim order, if any, stands vacated.
Photostat certified copy of this Judgment, if applied for, be given to the parties on priority basis upon compliance of all formalities.