Yoginder Pal S/O Nawab Singh vs Union Of India (Uoi) Through ...
2006 Latest Caselaw 1262 Del

JUDGMENT

Shiv Narayan Dhingra, J.

1. The petitioner has filed this writ petition for issuing a writ of mandamus directing the respondents to absorb the petitioner as an employee of the respondent's bank and to regularize his services with effect from the date he had entered into the service and also to issue a writ of mandamus for directing the respondent to fix wages of the petitioner and settlement of dues with all consequential benefits. Further prayer is that a writ of mandamus be issued for abolition of contract labour.

2. Briefly the facts relevant for deciding this writ petition are that the petitioner was running a subsidized canteen in the premises provided by the bank on 'no profit no loss' basis and the bank had constituted a committee for overseeing the activities of the canteen. The bank was providing subsidy through canteen committee. The petitioner submits that he requested the canteen committee to increase the rates of eatables and subsidy but the committee did not pay any heed to it. The petitioner then requested the bank and the Labour Commissioner to look into this matter but to no effect. There were about 90 employees in the bank and the bank was supposed to pay subsidy @ of Rs. 215 per employee but the bank was paying only Rs. 3100 per month as subsidy to the petitioner. The rest of the amount payable to the petitioner was being pocketed by the canteen committee. Since the petitioner raised these issues he apprehended that he would be ousted from from canteen, and he filed a suit No. 238/99 for injunction praying that he be not dispossessed from the canteen except by due process of law. This suit of the petitioner was dismissed vide order dated 31.7.1999 being not maintainable. The petitioner thereafter filed this writ petition.

3. Learned Counsel for the petitioner argued that the petitioner, in view of the law laid down by the Supreme Court in MMR Khan and Ors. v. Union of India had become an employee of the bank, therefore, the petitioner should be treated as an employee of the bank and a mandamus be issued to the bank for treating the petitioner as an employee and his pay be fixed.

4. While exercising power of writ jurisdiction, this Court cannot entertain issues involving disputed questions of facts and also cannot generally entertain the petition where alternative remedy is available. In case the petitioner considered himself as an employee of the bank and wanted to raise dispute about his illegal termination, the proper course for the petitioner was to raise an industrial dispute before appropriate authority. The petitioner had directly approached this Court for issuance of writ of mandamus asking that the bank be directed to absorb him. I consider, such a writ does not lie. The petitioner was admittedly a contractor running a canteen. He has admitted that he had employed several employees to run the canteen and subsidy was being paid to the employees by the bank. While it may be that where a statutory canteen is being run through a contractor, the employees of the contractor may be considered as employees of the principal employer but there is no law that the contractor himself is be treated as an employee of the principal employer.

5. I consider that the writ petition of the petitioner is not maintainable and is hereby dismissed. No order as to cost.