Case: Chief Conservator of Forest Vs. Jagannath Maruti Kondhare

2. Before applying our mind to the first question, it would be apposite to mention that this point had not been before the Industrial Court and it is because of this that the High Court, on being approached against the award of the Industrial Court, did allow this point to be agitated before it. This Court, however, felt, in view of the importance of the question, that the contention may be gone into as would appear from the order passed on 6.11.1992. But as a contention was advanced for the respondents-workmen that the dispute is fairly old and if the matter were to be remanded to Industrial Court, the workmen would suffer second round of litigation causing hardship to them, a direction was given to the counsel for the appellants to place the factual data, on record of this Court itself, on the basis of which it was contended that the Forest Department was not an `industry. It was so done.

Court's reasoning:
This aspect of the matter has been dealt with at pages 405 to 410 of the judgment, reference to which shows that keeping in view the special facts and circumstances of the case (paragraph 11), namely undertaking of famine and drought relief works by the State Government by introducing certain schemes to provide relief and succour works to the affected people, instead of distributing doles which may hurt the dignity, self-respect and sentiments of these receiving the same, it was held that it would be difficult to hold the undertaking to be an `Industry. What really follows from this judgment is that apart from the aforesaid three functions, there may be some other functions also regarding which a view could be taken that the same too is a sovereign function. We accept this.We may not go by the lables. Let us reach the hub. And the same is that the dichotomy of sovereign and non-sovereign functions does not really exist - it would all depend on the nature of the power and manner of its exercise, as observed in para 23 of Nagendra Raos case. As per the decision in this case, one of the tests of determine whether the executive function is sovereign in nature is to find out whether the State is answerable for such action in courts of law. It was stated by Sahai, J. that acts like defence of the country, raising armed forces and maintaining it, making peace or war, foreign affairs, power to acquire and retain territory, are functions which are indicative of external sovereignty and are political in nature. They are, therefore, not amenable to the jurisdiction of ordinary civil court inasmuch as the State is immune from being sued in such matters. But then, according to this decision, the immunity ends there. It was then observed that in a welfare State, functions of the State are not only the defence of the country or administration of justice or maintaining law and order but extends to regulating and controlling the activities of people in almost every sphere, educational, commercial, social, economic, political and even martial. Because of this the demarcating line between sovereign and non- sovereign powers has largely disappeared.13. The aforesaid shows that if we were to extend the concept of sovereign function to include all welfare activities as contended on behalf of the appellants, the ratio in Bangalore Water Supply case would get erobed, and substantially. We would demur to do so on the fact what was stated in the aforesaid case according to which except the strictly understood sovereign function, welfare activities of the State would come within the purview of the definition of industry; and, not only this, even within the wider circle of sovereign function, there may be an inner circle encompassing some units which could be considered as industry if substantially severable.14. This is not all, as Shri Dholakia has submitted that the Pachgaon Parwati Scheme (and for that matter the social forestry work undertaken in Ahmednagar district, in appeals relating to which Shri Bhandare has addressed us) being meant for preservation of forests and environment has to be regarded, in any case, as part of inalienable function inasmuch as the type of work which was undertaken under that scheme could not have been done by a private individual or entity.15. A perusal of the affidavit filed by the Chief Conservator of Forests on 5.12.1992, pursuant to our order of 6.11.1992, shows that the Pachgaon Parwati Scheme was framed as per the Government Resolution based on the policy decision taken in April 1976. The Scheme was to be initially for a period of 5 years and an area of about 245 hectares situated on a hill plateau on the southern outskirts and within easy access of Pune City was selected for creation of a park under bio-aesthetic development for the benefit of the urban population. It is further stated that the scheme was ``primarily intended to fulfil bio-aesthetic, recreational and educational aspirations of the people which will have inestimable indirect benefit of producing enlightened generation of conservationists of nature inclusive of forests and wild life for the future.The aforesaid being the crux of the scheme to implement which some of the respondents were employed, we are of the view that the same cannot be regarded as a part of inalienable or inescapable function of the State for the reason that the scheme was intended even to fulfil the recreational and educational aspirations of the people. We are in no doubt that such a work could well be undertaken by an agency which is not required to be even an instrumentality of the State.17. This being the position, we hold that the aforesaid scheme undertaken by the Forest Department cannot be regarded as a part of sovereign function of the State, and so, it was open to the respondents to invoke the provisions of the State Act. We would say the same qua the social foresting work undertaken in Ahmednagar district. There was, therefore, no threshold bar in knocking the door of the Industrial Courts by the respondents making a grievance about adoption of unfair labour practice by the appellants.We have given our due thought to the aforesaid rival contentions and, according to us, the object of the State Act, inter alia, being prevention of certain unfair labour practices, the same would be thwarted or get frustrated if such a burden is placed on a workman which he cannot reasonably discharge. In our opinion, it would be permissible on facts of a particular case to draw the inference mentioned in the second part of the item, if badlis, casuals or temporaries are continued as such for years. We further state that the present was such a case inasmuch as from the materials on record we are satisfied that the 25 workmen who went to Industrial Court of Pune (and 15 to Industrial Court, Ahmednagar) had been kept as casuals for long years with the primary object of depriving them the status of permanent employees inasmuch as giving of this status would have required the employer to pay the workmen at a rate higher than the one fixed under Minimum Wages Act. We can think of no other possible object as, it may be remembered that the Pachgaon Parwati Scheme was intended to cater to the recreational and educational aspirations also of the populace, which are not ephemeral objects, but par excellence permanent. We would say the same about environment-pollution-care work of Ahmednagar, whose need is on increase because of increase in pollution. Permanency is thus writ large on the face of both the types of work. If, even in such projects, persons are kept in jobs on casual basis for years the object manifests itself; no scrutiny is required. We, therefore, answer the second question also against theto us, the case is more akin to that of State of Haryana v. Piara Singh and others, 1992(3) SCT 201(SC) : 1992(4) SCC 118, in which this Court favoured the State Scheme for regularisation of casual labourers who continued for a fairly long spell-say two or three years (paragraph 51). As in the cases at hand the concerned workmen had, by the time they approached the Industrial Courts worked for more or less 5 years continuously, no case for interference with this part of the relief has been made out.27. We may also meet the contention that some of the workmen had been employed underthe Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Act, 1977. As to this, we would first observe that no factual basis for this submission is on record. Indeed, in some of the cases it has been pointed out that the employer had not even brought on record any order of appointment under this Act. This apart, a persual of this Act shows that it has not excepted the application ofthe Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. This is apparent from the perusal of section 13 of this Act. It may be further pointed out that this Act having been brought into force from 1978, could not have applied to the appointments at hand most of whom are of the year 1977.28. Insofar as the financial strain on State exchequer is concerned, which submission is sought to be buttressed by Shri Dholakia by stating that in the Forests Department itself the casual employees are about 1.4 lacs and if all of them were to be regularised and paid at the rate applicable to permanent workmen, the financial involvement would be in the neighbourhood Rs. 300 crores - a very high figure indeed. We have not felt inclined to bear in mind this contention of Shri Dholakia as the same has been brought out almost from the hat. The argument relating to financial burden is one of despair or in terrorem. We have neither been impressed by the first not frightened by the second inasmuch we do not intend that the view to be taken by us in these appeals should apply, proprio vigore, to all casual labourers of the Forests Department or any other Department of the Government.29. We wish to say further that if Shri Bhandares submission is taken to its logical end, the justification for paying even minimum wages could wither away, leaving any employer, not to speak of model employer like the State, to exploit unemployed persons. To be fair to Shri Bhandare it may, however, be stated that the learned counsel did not extend his submission this far, but we find it difficult to limit the submission of Shri Bhandare to payment of, say fair wages, as distinguished from minimum wages. We have said so, because if a pay scale has been provided for permanent workmen that has been done by the State Government keeping in view its legal obligations and must be one which had been recommended by the State Pay Commission and accepted by the Government. We cannot deny this relief of permanency to the respondent-workmen only because in that case they would be required to be paid wages meant for permanent workers. This right flows automatically from the relief of regularisation to which to objection can reasonably be taken, as already pointed out. We would, however, observe that the relief made available to the respondents is not one which would be available ipso facto to all the casual employees either of the Forests Department or any other Department of the State. Claim of casual employees for permanency or for higher pay shall have to be decided on the merits of their own cases.