SANKAR MUKHERJEE AND ORS. versus UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.

Citation: [1989] SUPP. 2 S.C.R. 182 · Decided: 16-11-1989 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: M.N. VENKATACHALIAH · Disposal: Case Allowed

Judgment (excerpt)

A 
SANKAR MUKHERJEE AND ORS. 
v. 
UNION OF INDIA AND ORS. 
NOVEMBER 16, 1989 
B 
[M.N. VENKATACHALIAH AND KULDIP SINGH, JJ.] 
c 
D 
Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970: s. JO--
Notification dated February 9, 1980 prohibiting contract labour in 
establishments of Mis Indian Iron & Steel Co. Ltd.-Exclusion of loa-
ders in brick deprtment-Validity of-Whether violative of Article 14 of 
the Constitution. 
• Section 10(1) of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) 
Act, 1970 empowered the appropriate Government to prohibit employ-
ment of contract labour in any process, operation or other wofk in any 
establishment. 
The Government of West Bengal issued a notification on 
February 9, 1980 under s. 10(1) of the Act prohibiting the employment 
of contract labour in certain departments in the establishments of M/s 
Indian Iron and Steel Company Ltd. Paragraph 9 of the Schedule 
thereto listing the departments, included cleaning and stactPng and 
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other allied jobs in the brick department, except loading and unloading 
of bricks from wagons and trucks. 
F 
G 
In the writ petition, the affected workmen assailed this action of 
· the State Government in excluding them from the beneficial purview of 
the notification as arbitrary, discriminatory and violative of Article 14 
of the Constitution. It was contended for them that the job of loading 
and unloading was not peculiar to the brick department alone, that the 
work of stacking was directly dependent on the loading and unloading 
of bricks, and that the two jobs being allied and incidental the workmen 
holding these jobs contd not be treated differently. For the responde.nts, 
it was contended that the job of loading and unloading of bricks in the 
brick department was not of perennial nature, the supply of bricks 
being intermittent depending upon the requirement, availa)>ility of 
brickS as also the availability of the wagons and trucks. 
Allowing the writ petition, 
H 
HELD: 1.1 The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act is 
182 
S. MUKHERJEE v. U.0.1. 
183 
an important piece of social legislation for. the welfare of the labourers 
and has to he liberally c0nstrued. (186D] 
Standard-Vacuum Refining Co. of India Ltd. v. Its Workmen, 
(1960] 3 SCR 466 and Catering Cleaners of Southern Railway v. Union 
of India & Anr., (1987] 1SCC700, referred to. 
1.2 In the instant case, it was not denied that the bricks bandied 
by the brick department were used in furnaces of the company as 
refractory. Therefore, the work done by the brick department includ-
A 
B 
ing loading and unloading of bricks was incidental to the industry car-
ried on by the company. It was also not denied that the petitioners were . C 
employed as contract labour by the company for the last 15/20 years. 
There was, therefore, no justification to treat the petitioners differently 
and deny them the right of regular appointment. [186E-F] 
1.3 The purchase of bricks, transportation to the factory, unload-
ing, stacking and use in the furnace were the jobs in one continuing 
D 
process. It could not thus he said that all these jobs were not incidental 
or allied to each other. That being so, all the workmen performing these . 
jobs were to he treated alike. On the same reasoning it could not he said 
that the loader's job was not, and other jobs in the brick depart- . 
ment were, of perennial nature. There was, therefore, no justifica-
tion for excluding the job of loading and unloading of bricks from 
E 
wagons and trucks froin the purview of the notification dated February 
9, 1980. (187G-188A] 
2. The words "except loading and unloading of bricks from 
wagons and trucks" in paragraph 9 of the Schedule to the notification 
are struck down being discriminatory and as such violative of Article 14 . F 
of the Constitution of India. (188A-B] 
(The petitioners and co-workers to he treated at par with effect 
from the date of notification with those who were doing the job of 
cleaning and stacking in the brick department, and such of them who 
have been retrenched during the pendency of the writ petition to be put 
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back into service with all back wages and consequential benelils.] (18118-C I 
ORIGINAL JURISDICTION: Writ Petition (Civil) No. 2123 of 
1982. 
(Under Article 32 of the Constitution oflndia). 
H. 
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G 
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184 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
[1989) Supp. 2 S.C.R. 
R.K. Garg and H.K. Puri for the Petitioners. 
D.P. Mukherjee, G.S. Chatterjee, Ms. C.K. Sucharita, M

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