Civil Writ Petition No. 22281 of 2010 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No. 22281 of 2010 Date of decision: April 04, 2011 Kapil & others ....Petitioners VERSUS State of Haryana and others ....Respondents CORAM:- HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH Present: Mr. Sanjiv Gupta, Advocate, for the petitioners. Ms. Shruti Jain, AAG, Haryana, for the State. Mr. Sanjay S. Chauhan, Advocate, for respondent Nos.4 to 9. **** RANJIT SINGH, J. This order will dispose of writ petition Nos.22281, 22044, 23479 of 2010, 51, 3078, 1405 of 2011. The petitioners are working as Fire Brigade Drivers or Fireman and claim to be employed by the respondent Municipal Committee/Corporation through the contractor. Their grievance is that they are likely to be replaced by another contractual employees. Since concededly the petitioners have not been able to show their contract employment with the respondent-Municipal Committee/Corporation and apparently are employed through a contractor, their replacement, if any, would be by a contractor. Civil Writ Petition No. 22281 of 2010 -2- Whether any direction of a binding nature to the Municipal Committee or Corporation could be issued in these circumstances for not to replace the petitioners, who are employed by a contractor, would be an issue. Contractor is not impleaded as a party in the writ petition. The petitioners' prayer that they can be treated as direct employees of the Municipal Committee/Corporation, is not made out from record. These disputed questions of fact would have to be decided by giving opportunity to the parties to lead evidence. It would be appropriate to relegate the petitioners to the remedy of seeking reference of the dispute in regard to nature of their employment and who their employer is. The writ petitions are, accordingly, disposed of with liberty to the petitioners to seek reference for adjudication of the dispute before the Labour Court. The petitioners would be at liberty to raise a challenge to the action, if any, leads to their termination on the ground that of replacement of the contractor. Issue of the contract labour can also be properly adjudicated by the Labour Court. Relegated to the remedy of seeking reference of the dispute before the Labour Court. April 04, 2011 (RANJIT SINGH ) monika JUDGE