Supreme Court Calls For Personal Appearance Of Mumbai Municipal Commissioner In Contempt Case Over Permanency Status To Workers

In a contempt petition filed against the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for non-compliance with directions to give permanent status to some of its workers, the Supreme Court on Tuesday called for the personal appearance of the Municipal Commissioner on the next date.

"...we are prima facie of the view that the Award of the Tribunal, as affirmed by the Bombay High Court and as modified by this Court vide order dated 7 April 2017 has been partially complied with. A major portion of the directions have not been complied with so far...", said the Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Prashant Kumar Mishra after perusing the Corporation's affidavit.

The officer has been directed to appear before the Court on March 19, 2024.

The genesis of the case lies in an Industrial Tribunal's Award dated October 13, 2014 directing the BMC to treat 2700 workers as permanent employees and to extend benefits/status retrospectively to them from the date of completion of 240 days since joining. Aggrieved by this Award, the Corporation had filed a writ petition, but the same was dismissed by the Bombay High Court, with a direction that the Award shall be implemented within 3 months.

Against the Bombay High Court order, BMC filed a Civil Appeal, which was partly allowed on April 7, 2017 and the Award modified. In the opinion of the concerned Bench, it was appropriate that the BMC pay monetary relief from the date of Award, instead of the date stipulated in the Award. So far as verification of the concerned workers (2700 in number) was concerned, it was directed that 1600 employees (who were found available) be granted relief as ordered by the court and a fresh verification exercise be undertaken by the Investigating Officer of the Industrial Court wrt the remaining employees within 6 months. The remaining employees, as and when verified, were to be granted similar relief.

Alleging contempt of the said order, the present proceedings were initiated.

Today, appearing for the BMC, Senior Advocate Dhruv Mehta mentioned that the verification exercise had to be conducted as the employees were not employees of the Corporation, but of the contractor. He further submitted that vide the 2017 order, the Award was modified and permanency status limited to those who had died or been permanently incapacitated.

According to the Senior Counsel's interpretation, workers who were "still serving" were not granted permanent status. The idea was to pay persons, who completed 240 days, salaries and arrears equivalent to regular employees. However, insofar as persons who had died or were permanently incapacitated, a special class was carved out to provide permanency (with all benefits available to a regular employee).

Mehta also drew attention of the court to para 10 of the BMC's affidavit, as per which 1497 workers had been paid arrears. It was further stated therein that wrt 41 workers, calculation and payments were in process. Insofar as the rest were concerned, reasons had been given either as to why payments could not be made or as to why they were not entitled.

When Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal (appearing for petitioner) pointed to 400 employees who had been verified but not paid a single penny, Mehta countered saying that the BMC was given a copy of the Industrial Investigating Officer's report on verification process only in December, 2023 and the same was infact incomplete.

Dismissing Mehta's contention, the Court remarked that the Investigating Officer's report was submitted in 2017 itself and BMC could have obtained it on its own but it did not make any such efforts. It added that 7 years had elapsed since passing of the relevant directions, without effective compliance. It was only when contempt proceedings were initiated that the Corporation apparently "woke up". In this context, the Court referred to the fact that BMC started calling up workers in late February to submit their documents.

When Mehta sought to aver that the Award was modified by the Supreme Court's order in 2017, the Bench was not convinced. Justice Nath opined that the 2017 order merely stated that the payment shall be made wef date of Award.

Considering the admitted position of BMC that permanency status had not been given to any of the 2700 workers, the Court concluded that there was "substantial non-compliance" on the part of the officers of the Corporation and passed order for personal appearance of the Municipal Commissioner.

Case Title: KACHARA VAHATUK SHARAMIK SANGH Versus AJOY MEHTA AND ORS, CONMT.PET.(C) No. 1264/2018 in C.A. No. 4929/2017 (and connected matter)

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