did thereby fall within clause (bb) of Section 2(oo) (i.e. under (i) above) - so goes the argument of Mr. Naik and Mr. Cama. That is taking a rather too simplistic or literal view of the matter. The facts of our case demonstrate, as I have noted above, a deliberate rotational scheme employed by the Respondent company over more than thirteen years. A pool of temporaries is maintained and anywhere between four to eight thousand temporaries from out of this pool are employed in rotation, some of them on 8 to 14 times, each time for a duration not exceeding seven months. The classical idea behind retrenchment has been surplussage; an employee, who has become surplus due to any reason of economy, rationalisation in industry, new technology, improved plant, etc., and hence, no more required, is retrenched. A fixed period contract, on the other hand, implies either that for some particular work or project or due to a spurt in the demand and the resultant need for increased activity, there is a special need for a certain employee or number of employees and accordingly, need for a contract of employment for the particular work or project, or for the particular fixed period. In our case, however, what one finds is perennial work, work which is no different from what was performed by permanent workmen of the company, for which temporaries were engaged. The engagement was throughout a long period of over thirteen years. Though the actual number varied throughout, being anywhere between four to eight thousand, surely a minimum of four thousand temporary workmen were required to be engaged throughout. In the case of each of these workmen (with whom we are concerned here), we can see such rotational pattern even going by the Respondent's own documents. Based on this evidence, the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn was that their employments were neither for any particular work or project nor were brought to an end after a fixed period due to want of work upon expiry of the period of contract. The engagements were brought to an end purportedly at the expiry of the stipulated period of contract only to see that they get an artificial break (during which others from the waiting list were employed) only to be re-employed and this went on - again and again. The whole pattern clearly appears to have been designed with a view to avoid any legitimate claim of permanency of tenure on the part of the concerned workmen. That is a clear recipe of an
