G.R. Majithia, J.@mdashPetitioners Sarvshri Sukhdev Raj, Avtar Singh, Parkash Chand, Banta Singh, Sohan Singh, Balwant Singh, Sohan Lal and Nikku, who are employees of Bhakra Beas Management Board (for short, the Board), Irrigation Wing, have sought a mandate to the respondents to regularise their services after they had put in more than five years'' service, in this petition under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India.
2. The petitioners say that they are working in the Irrigation Wing of the Board. They have been employed on one project or the other of Irrigation or the Power Wings of the Board for the last more than 20 years. They were working in the Irrigation Wing in the year 1984 when the Irrigation Wing with its works and material were transferred to the Power Wing of the Board. In the year 1986, the Board again decided to re-transfer the petitioners to its Irrigation Wing. An order was issued that the seniority would be reckoned from the date of their joining the Irrigation Wing. They say that in an identical case, the work-charged employees of Hydel Works of Anandpur Sahib, who were sought to be retrenched after they had put in more than five years'' service, challenged the action of the Irrigation Department in C.W.P. No. 718 of 1986 and this Court laid down the criteria for regularizing the services of those employees. On these premises, the petitioners have sought the following directions to the respondents:-
"(i) To treat the petitioners in continuous service from the date they were appointed in the Bhakra Beas Management Board and to give all benefits in this regard, including the protection of service and protection of pay.
(ii) To consider the petitioners as continuously working and regularizing them after they have completed five years of service and then making a seniority list of the petitioners according to their entitlement in their respective cadres from the date of their appointment.
(iii) To restore the position of the petitioners Parkash Chand and Avtar Singh to the posts they were holding and not to grant any promotion or benefit to the persons who are actually junior to them but for the order Annexure P.5 in the Irrigation Wing of the Bhakra Beas Management Board.
(iv) To pay arrears of pay, with interest, to the petitioners."
3. Written statement has been filed on behalf of the respondents. It is pleaded therein that the petitioners were the work-charged employees of the Beas Construction Board constituted by the Central Government in exercise of powers conferred u/s 80 of the Punjab Reorganization Act, 1966 (Act 31 of 1966) (for short, the Act), for the execution of the Beas Project. The Act provided that when the components of the Beas Project under execution by the Beas Construction Board are completed, they shall be transferred to the Bhakra Beas Management Board, a statutory body constituted under Sub-section (1) of Section 79 of the Act, and when all the components of Beas Project have been so transferred, the Beas Construction Board shall cease to exist. When the Beas Project''s construction was nearing completion, the petitioners through their respective Unions approached the Supreme Court through a group of writ petitions claiming their transfer along with transfer of completed components of the Beas Project from the Beas Construction Board to the Board. These group of writ petitions were disposed of by the Supreme Court through the judgment reported as
4. Additional affidavit dated August 21, 1991, was filed by Shri S.K. Kapoor, Additional Secretary, Bhakra Beas Management Board, Chandigarh, wherein it is stated that the Board, on reconsideration of the matter, had decided not to transfer the Water Transport Section from its Power Wing to the Irrigation Wing along with the employees. The employees of the Water Transport Section shall continue to be the employees of the Power Wing of the Board. They shall simply work under the Irrigation Wing on "job order" basis. It is further stated therein that the Board had taken a policy decision to convert all the existing workcharged posts in the Board into regular posts vide Memo No. 5G935-41/PD/U14/88/R5, dated November 18, 1988, issued by the Additional Secretary of the Board to all Chief Engineers in the Board. All the work-charged employees were served with a notice u/s 19A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, seeking their option for coining over to the regular establishment on the terms and conditions set out in the notice. Petitioners No. 1, 2 and 4, namely, Sukdev Raj, Avtar Singh and Banta Singh, did not opt for coming over to the regular establishment. They conveyed their refusal through communications dated June 30, 1988, June 29, 1988 and June 29, 1988, respectively. Petitioners No. 5, 6, 7 and 8, namely, Sohan Singh, Balwant Singh, Sohan Lal and Nikku, opted for coming over the regular establishment and are in the regular establishment of the Board. Petitioner No. 1 retired from service in work charged capacity on April 30, 1991 and petitioner No. 3 retired from the service of the Board before the introduction of the scheme for regularisation of the services.
5. The petitioners'' apprehension that their services would be transferred from the Power Wing to the Irrigation Wing is illusory. The order contained in letter No. 30834-38/E-322/5/84/2-Trr, dated July 14, 1988 had been issued by the Board to the effect that the equipment and staff of Water Transport System would remain with the Power Wing but will work with the Irrigation Wing on "Job Order" basis.
6. The learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that the petitioners'' services should be regularised from the date they joined the Beas Construction Board and their entire service should be counted towards retrial benefits. The submission is devoid of any merit. The petitioners were the workcharged employees of the Beas Construction Board. On completion of the Beas Project, the components of the Beas Construction Board were to be transferred to the Bhakra Beas Management Board. The petitioners sought their transfer to the Board along with its components. Their claim was negatived by the apex Court in the judgment rendered in Jaswant Singh''s case (supra). The apex Court held that the employment of all the persons employed in the Beas Project would cease on completion of the Project, and on completion of that Project or any other works for which they were employed, their employment would come to an end. It was in view of this decision of the apex Court that the petitioners accepted the retrenchment compensation and other benefits payable to them under the Industrial Disputes Act and they were discharged from service of the Beas Construction Board. They were employed afresh in the Power Wing of the Board and now their services are being regularised in terms of the policy decision dated November 18, 1988. It is not open to them to urge that the period of service rendered by them under the Beas Construction Board should be tagged with the period of service under the Board for the purpose of regularisation of, their services and consequential benefits. Reliance can usefully be placed on the following observations of their Lordships of the Supreme Court in
" The petitioners also pray that the respondents be directed to retain them in service for the purposes of the Beas Project itself and to continue to employ them in the posts held by them, after the transfer of the completed works of that Project to the Bhakra Beas Management Board. This prayer is founded on the provisions of the first proviso to Section 79(4) and those of Sub-section (6) of Section 80 of the Punjab Reorganization Act. We do not think that any of the aforesaid provisions can help the petitioners. Section 79(4) provides that the Bhakra Management Board may employ such staff as it may consider necessary for the efficient discharge of its functions under the Act. By the first proviso to this sub-section, every person who ''immediately before the constitution of the said Board'' was engaged in the construction, maintenance or operation of the works mentioned in Sub-section (1) shall continue to be so employed under the Board in connection with the works, on the same terms and conditions of service as were applicable to him before such constitution, until the Central Government by order directs otherwise. The proviso refers to persons who were engaged in any of the works mentioned in Clauses (a) to (g) of Section 79(1) immediately before the constitution of the Bhakra Management Board. That Board was constituted on October 1, 1967 and therefore the narrow question to ask oneself is whether the petitioners were engaged in connection with any of the matters mentioned in Clauses (a) to (g) of Section 79(1), immediately before that date. The Beas Construction Board was also constituted on the same date as the Bhakra Management Board, that is to say, on October 1, 1967. The petitioners were holding their employment either under the Beas Construction Board or after November 1, 1966 under the Beas Construction Board. The first proviso to Section 79(4) is designed to protect the services of the persons who, prior to the establishment of the Bhakra Management Board, were engaged in the construction work connected with the Bhakra and Nangal Dams and the power houses linked therewith. The petitioners were working on the Beas Project and are not therefore entitled to the benefit of that proviso.
A branch of the same argument is that u/s 80(5), components of the Beas Project the construction of which has been completed after November 1, 1966 have to be transferred to the Bhakra. Management Board and thereupon the provisions of Section 79 come into operation as if the transferred works were included in Clauses (a) to (g) of Section 79(1). It is urged that if any completed component of the Beas Project is transferred to the Bhakra Management Board as required by Section 80(5), as has been done in the present case on May 15, 1976, the petitioners would become the employees of the Bhakra Management Board, since the work in connection with which they were employed is transferred to that Board. There is no warrant for this submission because, though Section 80(5) requires a completed work of the Beas Project to be transferred to the Bhakra Management Board, it does not provide that the persons who were employed in connection with such a work should also be transferred as employees of the Bhakra Management Board. In very nature of things there could be no such provision because if any persons were employed for the Beas Project only, their employment would normally cease on completion of that project. In fact, the petitioners were taken in employment on temporary posts for the purpose of completing the Beas Project. On the completion of that Project or any other works for which they were employed, their employment would normally come to an end, especially since the statute from which their rights are said to flow does not protect that employment.
Yet another limb of the same argument flowing from the provisions of Section 80(6) is that since a completed component of the Beas Project was transferred to the Bhakra Management Board on May 15, 1976, that Board had to be renamed under Sub-section (6) as the Bhakra Beas Management Board. It is urged that the words ''Bhakra Beas Management Board'' should be substituted for the words ''Bhakra Management Board'' occurring in Section 79(4) of the Reorganization Act, and if they are so substituted, the expression ''said Board'' in the first proviso to Section 79(4) would necessarily have reference to the Bhakra Beas Management Board. This argument contains a fallacy. The first proviso to Section 79(4) speaks of persons who immediately before ''the constitution'' of the Bhakra Management Board were engaged in the works mentioned in Sub-section (1) of Section 79. The scheme of Section 80 shows that the Bhakra Beas Management Board was never constituted as such. The only effect which the statute brings about by Sub-section (6) of Section 80 is the renaming of the Bhakra Management Board as the Bhakra Beas Management Board. The words "constitution of the said Board" cannot therefore be substituted by the words "the renaming of the said Board". The contemplation of Section 79(4) is that only a certain class Of employees should receive protection in the matter of continued employment. Unfortunately, the petitioners do not fall within that class since they were not employees of the Bhakra Management Board immediately before October 1, 1967 when that Board was constituted."
7. Learned counsel for the petitioners referred to the following judgments in support of his contention :-
(1)
(2)
(3) State of Punjab and Ors. v. Ruldu Ram and Ors. 1990(2) RSJ 754 (P&H) ;
These judgments are wholly inapplicable to the instant case.
8. For the reasons stated above, the writ petition fails and is dismissed.
