Ranchi. Jharkhand High Court has canceled the dismissal of 44 permanent workers working in Kargali and Swang Coal Washeries of Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) in the year 2017 and ordered their reinstatement. Dhanbad District Labor Court had also approved the decision of CCL management to dismiss these workers.
The division bench headed by Justice S Chandrashekhar of the High Court, while hearing the appeal petitions of these dismissed workers, has said that the Labor Court does not have its jurisdiction to order the dismissal of a worker. The High Court has commented in its decision that the job of the Labor Court is to settle labor disputes. It should not happen that he himself creates controversy.
More than 300 workers were working temporarily on contract basis in CCL’s Kargli and Swang coal washeries since around 1980. In the year 1990, the contract labor union, citing an order of the Government of India, had filed a case in the Dhanbad Labor Court demanding permanent service of these workers.
While hearing this, in 1996 the court had directed to make their service permanent. CCL management had appealed against this order in the High Court and then in the Supreme Court, but the decision came in favor of the workers. After this, in the year 2010, 134 of these laborers were given permanent appointment by CCL management in Swang and Kargli Coal Washeries.
But, after this, in the year 2012, CCL started departmental proceedings against them in the light of some complaints. On this the workers once again took refuge in the Labor Court of Dhanbad. In this case, the Labor Court’s order came in the year 2017, in which these workers were ordered to be removed from the job, following which CCL dismissed them. Forty-four workers filed a petition in the Jharkhand High Court against the dismissal order, hearing which the court ordered their reinstatement.