New Delhi, Jan. 31: The Supreme Court has directed regularisation of 74 casual workers who were retrenched from the Bhurkunda Colliery in Jharkhand after it was taken over by Central Coalfields Limited (CCL).

A bench comprising Justice Arun Kumar and Justice Dalveer Bhandari asked the public sector coal company to complete the regularisation process within two months and submit a report within a month thereafter.

?The main object of enacting industrial and labour laws is to ensure peace and harmony between the employers and the employees in the larger interest of the society,? the court said, while upholding a Jharkhand High Court order.

After taking over the Bhurkunda Colliery, CCL had engaged as many as 125 people working in the mine as ?mazdoors? in certain engineering projects.

However, after the labour union raised the demand for regularisation, the management had retrenched all of them.

The union, which resisted the retrenchment, pointed out that CCL had regularised large number of casual workers who had completed 240 days of attendance.

Succumbing to the demand by the labour union, the home minister referred the dispute to the industrial tribunal in Dhanbad which noted that the Bhurkunda Colliery workers were entitled to the same treatment as that given to the Giddi-A colliery workers whose services were regularised.