Order against CPCL set aside

CHENNAI: An order of a Labour Court directing Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited (CPCL), formerly known as Madras Refineries Limited (MRL), to absorb 381 members of a trade union with retrospective effect from the date of their initial entry into the service of MRL Industrial Co-operative Service Society Limited (INDCO Serve), has been set aside by the Madras High Court.Justice K Chandru set aside the order, while allowing writ petitions from the management of CPCL and INDCO Serve, challenging the order of the Central Government Industrial Tribunal (CGIT)-cum-Labour Court.According to CPCL, it had engaged contractors, of which one was INDCO Serve, which was formed by employees previously working under the contractors. CPCL also became a member of INDCO Serve in 1983. The main object of INDCO Serve was to take up and execute various works entrusted to it by CPCL. Subsequent to the formation of INDCO Serve, its members, through their trade union, raised an industrial dispute to absorb them into CPCL. The dispute was referred to CGIT, which held that the so-called contract between INDCO Serve and CPCL was only nominal and only a camouflage. It held that INDCO workers were really the workmen of CPCL and therefore, they were entitled to be regularised into the service of CPCL. Challenging this order, CPCL filed the present petition.The HC judge said that the INDCO Serve was a registered contractor and the CPCL had registered itself as principal employer under the provisions of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act. The workmen employed in INDCO Serve were governed by their own standing orders and the special bye-laws applicable to them. Employees of INDCO Serve were not appointed by CPCL by any recruitment process conducted by them but were appointed by INDCO Serve.Therefore, the demand raised by the workmen were misconceived and not legally sustainable. “Hence, the award stands set aside,” the judge said.