@JUDGMENTTAG-ORDER
1. The Union of India should have been satisfied with the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal in O.A. no. 920 of 2000 : Bithal Paswan vs.
Union of India & Ors. Firstly, an order of 3rd December 2002 is being made the subject matter of a challenge after 10 months before the High
Court. As casually as the issue has been treated in bringing the writ petition to the High Court so also the cause which was brought by the applicant
before the Central Administrative Tribunal.
2. These are the issues :
Under the Ministry of Agriculture along with Indian Council of Agricultural Research, an organization, which functions under the patronage of the
Union of India and its Ministry of Agriculture (this is discernible from the vakalatnama, which is appended to the petition), there is a Central Potato
Research Institute which its headquarter is at Simla and in other parts of the nation there are research stations. Bihar also has one of them in Patna.
3. Bithal Paswan had been employed as a casual labourer in 1955. This is recorded in paragraph 2 of the order of the Tribunal. He retired in the
year 2000 with approximately 34 years of service. When he made a demand for pension and/or regularization of service, an issue was raised that
he cannot be regularized and the question of granting him any pension does not arise. Any regularization which was accorded it was from 1991.
This clearly affected the employee''s pension. Reckoning of pension from the date of appointment and in instant taking into account only the last
decade of his service makes much difference to a Class-IV employee. When the matter reached the Central Administrative Tribunal all sorts of
pleas were taken as if an employer is fighting with an employee labourer before a Labour Court or a Tribunal. One such plea was that this
employee was never regularized, his functions were seasonal and the question of his receiving the benefits of regularization or full pension does not
arise. In this decision the Tribunal recorded, to the effect, that the employee was not a farm hand as he worked for research station. Research is
done year round. May be the research station also does farming but it does so for finding knowledge in fields of agriculture. Thus, this plea could
not be put in the face of the employee that he was casual in nature.
4. There is an age old decision of the Supreme Court, which was delivered more than 40 years ago that if the work lasts throughout the year is not
casual and temporary in nature, then the functions of a workman will be deemed to be continuous service. The research station functions
continuously. The dominant purpose of the employer here was research, potato farming may have been seasonal. Preserved potato for further
research and the culture which is created, is an aspect, which is the dominant purpose of the employer.
5. The employer (s/o-Tribunal ?) gave a decision that from the year 1961 to 1991 the employee should be reckoned as having performed half
service and, thereafter, regularized with full service. This in itself should have satisfied such a large dominant employer as the Union of India. This
court is of the opinion that this ought to have been the end of controversies. This writ petition should not have been filed.
6. The employee was not stranger. Year after year he served the Union of India at its research station. There is no issue about the genesis of his
employment. It is not the case of Union of India that his very appointment had been obtained fraudulently. This is not the case. The court expects
that the Union of India will act like a large hearted employer and accept the decision of the Tribunal as has been rendered. Otherwise, though no
direction is being issued, this court felt that the regularization ought to have been from the date when this employee entered his service in 1956.
Dismissed.
