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Mohan Singh & Ors. v. The Chairman, Railway Board & Ors.

Civil Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Civil Appeal Nos. 5874-5875 of 2015)Decided 3 Aug 2015
Civil Appeal Nos. 5874-5875 of 2015
Justice Vikramajit Sen · Justice Prafulla C. Pant

Background

Canteen workers at the Divisional Railway Manager's (DRM) office in Moradabad, who had been running a staff canteen since 1940, sought official recognition of the canteen as a "Statutory Canteen" and regularisation of their jobs as Railway employees. The Railway Board had refused recognition in 2002, and the Delhi High Court's Division Bench reversed a single judge's earlier ruling in the workers' favour, holding the canteen was "Non-Recognised and Non-Statutory." The workers appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the DRM Moradabad office qualified as a "factory" under Section 2(m) of the Factories Act, 1948, because manufacturing-type activities (wagon repair, signal maintenance, power supply to tracks, etc.) were carried on within its precincts, and more than 250 workers were employed there, triggering the mandatory statutory canteen requirement under Section 46. It therefore held the canteen was a Statutory Canteen and set aside the High Court's Division Bench judgment. However, the Court declined to order automatic regularisation of the individual appellants since they had not been appointed through a regular recruitment process, instead directing the Railways to consider regularising them per the principles in Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Uma Devi, with age relaxation and weightage for their canteen service, and to fill future vacancies through regular selection.

Lesson Learnt

Even government establishments cannot escape statutory welfare obligations like providing a proper canteen merely by not formally "recognising" a long-running facility, but winning that status does not automatically convert informally-appointed workers into permanent employees; back-door appointments still generally need to go through a regularisation process consistent with constitutional recruitment norms.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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