IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Letters Patent Appeal No.102 of 2011 Date of Decision : April 19, 2011. Balwinder Singh .....Appellant versus Punjab State Electricity Board, Patiala and others .....Respondents CORAM : HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJAN GOGOI, CHIEF JUSTICE. HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE SURYA KANT. ** Present : Mr.Ram Niwas Sharma, Advocate, for the appellant. -.- 1. Whether Reporters of Local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? --- RANJAN GOGOI, C.J . (Oral) This order shall dispose of LPA Nos.102 to 115 of 2011 as all these appeals have raised common question of more or less identical facts. For brevity, the facts are being extracted from LPA No.102 of 2011 (Balwinder Singh versus Punjab State Electricity Board, Patiala and others). All these 14 appeals are against a common judgment dated 31.1.2009 passed by the learned Single Judge of this Court. By the aforesaid order, the learned Single Judge has set-aside the common award dated 12.8.1999 passed by the learned Labour Court, Patiala, by which re-instatement in service with 50% back wages was granted to the appellants-workmen. The learned Single Judge on an elaborate consideration of respective cases of the parties and the materials adduced before the learned LPA No .102 of 2011 2 Labour Court, particularly the bills of the Contractor, exhibited as Exhibit M-8 to M-55, came to the conclusion that there is no master and servant relationship between the appellant-workmen and the principal employer. The learned Single Judge also came to the conclusion that the appellant- workmen were engaged through a labour contractor who had paid wages to the workmen on receipt of the bills submitted by the contractor to the principal employer. In this regard, the learned Single Judge was also of the view that the supervisory control and assignment of work by the representative of the principal employer, which was proved by the materials on record, would not make the workmen direct employees under the principal employer. Accordingly, the writ petitions filed by the Management were allowed and the award passed by the learned Labour Court was interfered with, as already noticed. Learned counsel for the appellants has taken us elaborately through the award of the learned Labour Court, particularly the findings recorded on a point of existence of master and servant relationship between the workmen and the principal employer. Learned counsel has also urged that the contractor in question was not registered under the provisions of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act') and, therefore, the Court ought not to take notice of the engagement of the workmen through the contractor. We have duly considered the award of the learned Labour Court as well as the evidence adduced, particularly by one Satish Kumar Chaudhary, Executive Engineer, in a parallel proceeding, i.e., Case No.90 LPA No .102 of 2011 3 of 1997. The said evidence clearly establishes that the workmen were engaged by the labour contractor and wages were paid to them through such contractor. In the face of such evidence, we do not say as to how the learned Labour Court could have come to the conclusion that there existed a servant and master relationship between the workmen and the principal employer. In this regard, we have specifically taken notice of the reliance placed by the learned Single Judge on Exhibits M-8 to M-55 which are the bills submitted by the contractor to the principal employer for payment of wages to the workmen as per the work orders issued. The absence of any registration of the labour contractor under the provisions of the Act, in our considered view, will not alter the situation. The same may make the labour contractor liable for penal and other action contemplated by the provisions of the Act. The absence of any such registration of the labour contractor cannot obliterate the engagement of workmen by the contractor; neither the said fact can alter the status of the workmen to one of regular employees under the principal employer. For the aforesaid reasons, we do not consider the present appeals to be appropriate for admission. All the appeals are consequently dismissed by refusing admission. (RANJAN GOGOI) CHIEF JUSTICE April 19, 2011 (SURYA KANT) Mohinder JUDGE