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ONGC Labour Union v. ONGC Dehradun & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2019 INSC 1154Decided 17 Oct 2019
Civil Appeal No. 8114 of 2019
Justice R. Banumathi · Justice A.S. Bopanna · Justice Hrishikesh Roy

Background

In 1994, the Central Government issued a notification under Section 10(1) of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act prohibiting the employment of contract labour in certain categories of work at ONGC, based on a study by a government sub-committee. In 2013, ONGC challenged this long-standing notification before the Uttarakhand High Court without making any of the recognised labour unions (including the ONGC Labour Union, the appellant here) a party to the case, and the High Court quashed the notification relying mainly on an unrelated Supreme Court judgment about a different, earlier notification. The ONGC Labour Union, left out of those proceedings entirely, appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found that the High Court had decided a matter directly affecting contract workers' livelihoods without hearing any representative labour union, and that the High Court was never shown the sub-committee's actual study and recommendations that had preceded the 1994 notification. It held that this denial of a hearing to affected workers was a violation of natural justice, and that the High Court's reliance on a precedent concerning an entirely different 1976 notification was potentially misplaced without examining the specific record behind the 1994 notification. The Court set aside the High Court's judgment and restored the original writ petition for fresh consideration, directing that the ONGC Labour Union and other recognised unions be formally impleaded as parties and the case be decided afresh within four months.

Lesson Learnt

A decision that will affect a group of workers cannot be validly made without giving their union a chance to be heard: courts will send a case back for a fresh, fair hearing rather than let a one-sided decision stand, even many years into the litigation.

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

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