Ranchi, Jan. 24: Defying an order of the Supreme Court, the Ranchi-based Central Mine Planning and Design Institute Limited (CMPDIL) has not yet paid interim relief to workers, which it should have following the directive issued on April 26 last year.
The Supreme Court order came during the hearing of a case relating to Section 17B of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, after a prolonged legal battle of these workers. The total interim relief due is around Rs 1 crore.
The workers alleged that the CMPDI was harassing them though they had struggled for their service for 10 years.
“About 28 workers, appointed as casual labourers by the CMPDI to complete a UNDP project, are struggling for their service regularisation since they were terminated in 1992 by the management. Their services were not regularised like their other colleagues due to reasons best known to the CMPDI management,” they said.
“These workers took the matter before the industrial tribunal which, in 1997, termed their termination ‘unjustified’ and directed CMPDI to reinstate them within two months. But the management went into appeal before Patna High Court, which admitted the case for hearing,” an affected employee said.
After the admission of appeal, the workers filed a writ petition, demanding interim relief till the disposal of the case. Hearing the petition, the court directed CMPDI to pay the “wages last drawn” to the workers. But CMPDI requested the court to review its order and filed an LPA petition.
The high court dismissed the petition, following which CMPDI, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited, moved the Supreme Court for appropriate direction to the high court.
A Jharkhand High Court division bench of Chief Justice V.K. Gupta referred the case to a single bench for deciding the relationship between the terminated workers and the management.
The workers challenged this new direction in the Supreme Court, which admitted the case and set aside the division bench’s order. The apex court then ordered for interim relief on April 26 last year.
But despite the Supreme Court’s order for interim relief, the CMPDI management has not made any payment to the workers who have been running from pillar to post to get the order implemented.
They are finding themselves unable to decide on a further course of action after the prolonged legal battle.
Though the CMPDI management refused to officially comment on the matter, sources said the company had taken recourse to an “identification problem” of the workers for not making payments of their interim relief. “The company demands proof of identification from the workers. The company wants the workers to be identified by the employees working in the CMPDI for not less than 20 years,” the sources sad, adding that “the employees do not want to identify the workers, fearing action from the management”.
Workers, however, said it was not necessary to produce any proof of identification to the management.
“The workers have signed many papers which the management possesses. These documents include the earlier payment bills, petitions, appointment letters (form B) and a whole range of official papers. The management can easily use these documents to know the identity of the workers,” they said.
CMPDI chairman B. Akala, who is retiring on January 31, was not available for comment.
