LAW FOR ALL

contempt of court - non­compliance of direction given to the respondent­Food Corporation of India1 to regularise and departmentalise the concerned workers who had initiated industrial disputes bearing I.D. No. 39/1992 and I.D. No. 55/1993 before the Industrial Tribunal2 , Tamil Nadu, Chennai under Section 10(1)(d) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 19473 . Apex court held that In the present case, as noticed earlier, no specific direction has been given to the Corporation to regularise the concerned workmen only in the Departmental Labour System. Furthermore, the Departmental Labour System is now a dying cadre and the policy of the Corporation at the relevant time entailed regularisation of such workmen only under the Direct Payment System (DPS). Thus understood, no contempt action can be initiated on the basis of general direction to the respondents to regularise and departmentalise the concerned workmen. For, it is not possible to hold that intrinsic in the general direction was to ordain the respondents to regularise and departmentalise the concerned workmen under the Departmental Labour System in the teeth of the extant policy of the Corporation in force since 1991 regarding regularisation against Direct Payment System (DPS).Suffice it to observe that no case for initiating contempt action against the respondent Corporation and its officers has been made out.