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M/S. Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. vs. The President, Oil Field Employees Association & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2022 INSC 145Decided 4 Feb 2022
Civil Appeal No. 1033 of 2022
L. Nageswara Rao · Aniruddha Bose · Vineet Saran instead of Justice L. Nageswara Rao

Background

Workers engaged through contractors at ONGC's Mumbai-region offshore operations, represented by the Oil Field Employees Association and two other unions, demanded wages and service conditions on par with ONGC's own regular workmen, rather than being bound by earlier wage settlements only among some unions. ONGC argued these workers were employees of its contractors (not of ONGC itself), and relied on a September 2016 wage settlement it had reached with a majority of contractor unions to say the claim was already resolved. A labour tribunal ruled in favour of the workmen, directing ONGC to negotiate a fresh wage-revision agreement; the Bombay High Court largely upheld this but sent part of the wage calculation back to the tribunal. ONGC appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that ONGC could not raise, for the first time on appeal, the objection that these workers were not really its own employees, since it never pressed that jurisdictional objection before the tribunal itself. On the binding-settlement question, the Court found the September 2016 settlement was essentially between the contractors and their workers (with ONGC only a consenting party), covered a different category of workers, and had been found by both the tribunal and High Court to be unfair because it required workers to withdraw pending legitimate claims, so it could not bind the minority unions who had not signed it. The Court declined to disturb the High Court's factual findings, holding they were not perverse, and dismissed ONGC's appeal, upholding the wage-revision directions with no order as to costs.

Lesson Learnt

A company cannot dodge a labour dispute by raising a "these aren't really my workers" defence for the first time in the Supreme Court if it never raised that objection before the original tribunal; and a wage settlement signed by a majority of unions does not automatically bind workers represented by other unions who were not party to it and who raise a genuinely different claim.

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

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