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Cafeteria workers are staff of university, rules SC

Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, Aug. 28

IN a verdict benefiting employees of cafeterias maintained by universities, the Supreme Court has held that they would be termed as employees of the universities and would be entitled to all benefits of regular university employees.

The ruling was handed down by a Bench of Mr. Justice S.B. Majumdar and Mr. Justice Umesh C. Banerjee, while dismissing two appeals by the G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Nainital.

Redressal of grievances of the 170 workers in the 14 cafeterias of the university by the Labour Court and granting them the status of permanent employees of the university under an award, which was confirmed by the Allahabad High Court, had prompted the university to approach the apex court by way of appeals.

The Supreme Court, in its judgment, said the regulations to the hostel accommodation and the supplies of food did not warrant any other conclusion than to treat it as an essential requirement so far as the inmates of the hostels were concerned.

``The involvement of the Vice-Chancellor, the warden and the food managers who admittedly all belong to the university as its employees cannot negate the cry of the labour force asking for a parity in their scale of pay'', the court observed.

The court further observed, ``Admittedly, cafeteria employees need succour for livelihood. Should they continue to remain half-fed and half-clad as long as they live?'' the court asked and added ``is this the society that we feel proud of, is this the gu arantee provided by the founding fathers of our Constitution or is this the concept of socialism which they conceived? None of the answers can possibly be in the affirmative?''

The court noted that the situation was rather awesome and deplorable _ the university, by compulsion, directed students to be residents of hostels with a definite ban on having food from outside agencies excepting under special circumstances and the prov ider of food, namely the staff of the cafeteria, ought not to be treated as an employee of the university.

``Whose employees they are, if we may ask and we think it would not be impertinent on our part to ask the same _ is it the consumer of food? The deprivation of the weaker section, we had for long but the time has now come to cry halt and it is for the la w courts to rise up to the occasion and grant relief to a seeker of a just cause and just grievance. Economic justice is not a mere legal jargon but in the new millennium, it is the obligation for all to confer this economic justice to a seeker. If socie ty is to remain, social justice is the order and economic justice is the rule of the day'', the court observed.

The court held that the university regulations led to the unmistakable conclusion that the employees of the cafeterias could not but be termed as employees of the university.

The court directed the university to regularise the services of the employees in the terms of the award passed by the labour court by August 31, 2000, so as to entitle them to receive monthly wages at par with the other employees of the university.

The arrears of salary, if there by any payable, as per the directions of the Labour Court as confirmed by the High Court, be paid to the canteen staff concerned in 12 equal monthly instalments along with the regularised salary, the court said.