Dismissed

Union of India and Ors. v. Bhanwar Lal and Ors.

Rajasthan HC1 Oct 2018SAW/813/2014

Case brief

AI extract

What is this about?

This special leave petition challenged orders dismissing a writ petition regarding wages of railway workers classified as rendering intermittent service. The Bench upheld the lower authorities' finding that short in-action and resting periods were negligible and should be ignored, allowing the appeal to be dismissed.

What did the court decide?

The writ appeal was dismissed.

Union of India and Ors. Vs Bhanwar Lal and Ors. — Service and Employment | Rajasthan HC (2018)

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HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE FOR RAJASTHAN AT JODHPUR

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D.B. Spl. Appl. Writ No. 813/2014

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The Union of India And Ors.

----Appellants

Versus

Bhanwar Lal And Ors.

----Respondents

For Appellant(s) : Mr. Kamal Dave For Respondent(s) : Mr. J.K. Kaushik

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HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE MR. PRADEEP NANDRAJOG HON'BLE DR. JUSTICE PUSHPENDRA SINGH BHATI

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Order

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01/10/2018

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Heard learned counsel for the parties.

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Challenge in the appeal is to an order dated 21^st March, 2014 dismissing S.B. Civil Writ Petition No.1984/2014 filed by the appellants challenging an order dated 15^th January, 2013 passed by the Secretary, Government of India, Ministry of Labour dismissing appeal filed by the appellants challenging the order dated 29^th February, 2008 passed by the Regional Labour Commissioner.

¶14

Learned counsel for the appellants concedes that for purposes of payment of wages the respondents were treated as employees rendering continuous service and vide order dated 10^th July, 2001 the Divisional Railway Manager, Jodhpur directed that they should be treated as employees rendering service which would be essentially intermittent. This resulted in less wages being paid.

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(2 of 3)

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[SAW-813/2014]

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To understand what was done by the Divisional Railway Manager, we need to highlight that the respondents were working as Points Man. As Points Man their job was to facilitate movement of trains and this required them to be in touch with the signaling department. To facilitate movement of trains at the point where they were working they had to pull the lever. The duty hours of the workmen were 12 hours. During this 12 hours, when trains would not be passing they would sit in the cabin room and presumably be resting.

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A joint survey was done by the railway authorities, treating 3 days as a representative segment which comes to 216 hours and the requirement of the rule of the departmental instructions was that during 12 hours shift if an employee had worked continuously for 6 hours he would be treated as having worked continuously led to the working hours being determined. If the working was less than 6 hours it would be treated as essentially intermittent working, and this affected the wages.

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The joint inspection report prepared by the railway authorities concededly determined the action period to be 5 hours and 49 minutes in the shift of 12 hours. This was less by 11 minutes of the qualifying period of 6 hours.

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In the order dated 29^th February, 2008 passed by the Regional Labour Commissioner the data provided by the railway authorities have been accepted and it has been accepted that as per the report the respondents were working in 12 hours shifts for a duration of 5 hours and 49 minutes. The first reason given by the Regional Labour Commissioner to grant relief to the respondents is that the period of short-fall i.e. 11 minutes is so

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(3 of 3)

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[SAW-813/2014]

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less that it needs to be ignored. Though not stated in the order the principle of de-minimis had been applied.

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That apart, a more substantial reason has been given. The more substantial reason is that a perusal of the joint inspection report prepared by the railway authorities shows that the in-action period i.e. the period during which the employees would statedly be resting is for durations less than 5 minutes which totals to 104 minutes and the duration of intervals when the employees were not in action ranged between 6 minutes to 10 minutes total 579 minutes. With reference to said data it has been reasoned that for the down-trodden working class, while assessing the workload such short intervals of in-action needs to be ignored.

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Common sense tells us that if a workman gets a break for say about 4 or 5 minutes between performing the task assigned it could not be a case where the workman can be said to be resting properly so-called.

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This reasoning of the Regional Labour Commissioner has been upheld by the appellate authority.

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We see no infirmity in the judicial approach by the two authorities concerned.

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The writ appeal is dismissed.

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(DR. PUSHPENDRA SINGH BHATI),J (PRADEEP NANDRAJOG),CJ

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Mohit Tak

Union of India and Ors. v. Bhanwar Lal and Ors.

Case brief

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Union of India and Ors. v. Bhanwar Lal and Ors.

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