WP/3717/1998 : 1 : vss IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION WRIT PETITION NO.3717 OF 1998 Employer in relation to the Management of Telecommunication through Divisional Engineer, Coaxial Maintainance Vadjai Road Naka, New Agra Road, Dhule-421 001 ... Petitioner V/s. The workman Shri Ramesh Bhattu Chaudhari c/o. Bharatiya Telecom Employees Cablemen, Line Staff & class IV, c/o. P.A. Kulkarni 14, Samarth Colony, Pramod Nagar Dhule-421 001 ... Respondent Mrs.Neeta V. Masurkar with Vinay S. Masurkar for Petitioner Mr.G.J. Mohan Rao for Respondent CORAM: SMT.NISHITA MHATRE, J. DATED: SEPTEMBER 15, 2010 ORAL JUDGMENT: 1. The Petition challenges the award of the Central Government Industrial Tribunal and Labour Court in Reference CGIT II/29 of 1996. By this award, the Tribunal has directed the petitioner to grant temporary status to the respondent with immediate effect. 2. The petitioner which is the Department of Telecommunications appointed the respondent as a casual workman on a daily rated wage from 10.9.1990. The respondent raised an industrial dispute contending that his services had illegally WP/3717/1998 : 2 : been terminated by the petitioner and that he ought to have been granted the status of temporary workman. 3. The Tribunal has on the basis of the evidence before it concluded that the respondent was employed as a casual workman from 17.1.1973 to 31.12.1977. Thereafter, he was appointed as such from 1.8.1978 to 31.10.1979 i.e. for a period of 395 days. Later, he was appointed on 18.12.1984 till 31.12.1984 for a period of 13 days. The Tribunal came to the conclusion that the respondent had abandoned his services after 1984. However, it was of the view that the Casual Labourers (Grant of Temporary Status and Regularisation) scheme was applicable to the respondent and, therefore has directed the petitioner to accord him the status of a temporary workman. 4. In my opinion, the judgment of the Tribunal is erroneous. The Scheme has come into force w.e.f. 1.10.1989 and is applicable to casual labourers employed by the Department of Telecommunication. Clause 5 of the scheme provides that temporary status is to be conferred on all casual labourers currently employed and who have rendered continuous service of at least one year out of which they should have been engaged on work for a period of 240 days (206 days in case of offices observing a 5 day week). Such casual labourers are to be designated as temporary Mazdoors. Therefore, the essence of conferment of the status of a temporary employee is that the workman must be “currently employed” meaning thereby when this scheme came into force the workman ought to have been in employment. It is only if the workman is in employment on 1.10.1989 can he be considered for the grant of the temporary status. The Tribunal's finding that the respondent had WP/3717/1998 : 3 : abandoned his service in 184 has not been challenged by the respondent. In fact, the Tribunal has held that the workman had abandoned his service and, besides writing a couple of letters to the employee, he had done nothing to redress his grievance. 5. In these circumstances, although the scheme would have benefited the workman had he been in employment on 1.10.1989 since he had completed 240 days in service prior to 1985, the respondent cannot avail of the scheme. In my opinion, therefore, the decision of the Tribunal to direct the petitioner to grant the respondent temporary status under the Casual Labourers (Grant of Temporary Status and Regularisation Scheme) is incorrect and must be set aside. 6. Petition allowed. Rule made absolute accordingly. No costs.