IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No.3142 of 2008 Motipur Sugar Workers Union Motipur Muzaffarpur through its Joint Secretary Ram Naresh Thakur son of Late Ram Briksh Thakur resident of Motipur, P.S. Motipur District Muzaffarpur. Versus 1. The State Of Bihar through the Chief Secretary, Govt. of Bihar, Patna. 2. The Cabinet Secretary, Govt. of Bihar, Patna. 3. The Managing Director, Bihar State Sugar Corporation Ltd., Uddhyog Bhawan 2nd Floor, East Gandhi Maidan, Patna. 4. The Secretary, Cane and Industries, Department Government of Bihar, Patna. 5. The Commissioner Cane and Industries, Govt. of Bihar, Patna. 6. The Reliance Industries Ltd., Makers Chamber’s IV Nariman Point, Mumbai – 400021. ---------------------------------- For the Petitioner :- Mr. Basant Kumar Choudhary, Sr. Advocate, Mr. Arun Kumar & Mr. Anil Kumar Singh For the State :- Mrs. Rani Kumari @ Rani Singh, A.C. to G.A. II For the Corporation :- Mr. Gyan Shankar. ------ 5 22/12/2011 Heard learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner, learned counsel for the State as well as learned counsel for the Bihar State Sugar Corporation Limited. Many sugar mills which were working under the Bihar State Sugar Corporation Limited went sick decades ago. There were no takers for those sick closed mills nor could the Government revive them despite best of their efforts. It is only now with the changed situation and - 2 - some decisive intervention at the level of the government that steps have been taken to lease out some of those closed units to certain Companies which wanted to battle the field to produce something, may be producing Ethnol or Sugar as the case may be. The present petitioner which is an Union attached with Motipur Sugar Factory are challenging the so called exit policy decided by the State Cabinet where they have fixed a cut off date for seasonal workers in terms of annexure-17 to the writ application. The so called exit settlement plan worked out by the Cabinet has fixed the year 1996-97 as the cut off date for Motipur Sugar Mill as according to the record that was the last season when production of sugar was made from the said Mill. Submission of the learned Senior Counsel challenging such arbitrary fixation of cut off date is that there is material to show that seasonal workers have been engaged even thereafter by the Sugar Corporation and work has been taken from them and, therefore, fixing 1996-97 as the cut off date is arbitrary. In this regard, by way of yet another supplementary affidavit annexure-23 - 3 - has been annexed which is supposed to be the list of seasonal employees who have worked as per sanction. There are certain seasonal employees who have been shown to have worked right upto 2008 though majority of them related to the year prior to that, details of which would be available from annexure-23. A very look of the documents contained in annexure-23 does not inspire confidence within the Court to hold as a clinching evidence for deciding the issue as well as for issuance of direction to shift the mile post to any other date than what has been fixed in terms of the exit policy. However, these are factual position which requires verification from the record whether there was any necessity for engaging any seasonal hand after the mill was closed down in the year 1996-97 and under what circumstance the seasonal workers were engaged in terms of the list annexure-23. Looking at the nature of the dispute, without expressing any opinion on the submission for shifting the cut off date, the Court directs the Managing Director of the Bihar State Sugar Corporation Limited as well as the State to carry out the exercise to identify the authenticity - 4 - of annexures- 20, 22 and 23 or otherwise of the engagement of seasonal workers beyond 1996-97, which is the cut off date and if there are reflections supported by evidence, then obviously a re-look on that aspect would be required to be done. This writ application is disposed of with the observation aforesaid. AMIN/ (Ajay Kumar Tripathi, J.)