Govt Employees not entitled to claim Double Over Time Allowance under Factories Act, 1948: SC

Security Printing & Minting Corporation of India Ltd Vs. Vijay D. Kasbe (Supreme Court of India)

Facts of the Case

• The case involves a dispute over the entitlement of double overtime allowance to supervisors working in the Security Printing & Minting Corporation of India Ltd. The Ministry of Finance, Government of India had nine production units, including four India Government Mints, two Currency Note Presses, two Security Printing Presses, and one Security Paper Mill under its control. In 2006, a wholly owned Company under the name and style of ‘Security Printing & Minting Corporation of India Ltd.’ was incorporated to take over the management, control, maintenance, and operations of those nine production units. The transfer of management automatically led to the transfer of the workforce and along with the assets and liabilities of the nine production units.
• The corporation inherited some litigation, including the one on hand. The case has a checkered history with fortunes fluctuating from one side to the other. In 1988, an order was issued by the Special Officer (Currency & Coinage), Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, directing that the non-gazetted supervisory staff of the presses and security paper mill would be compensated for extended hours of work at certain rates. The order indicated that the category of staff mentioned therein would be entitled to a special allowance to be paid in lieu of overtime allowance.
• By a subsequent order issued by the Government of India on 11.4.2000, it was clarified that the staff whose basic pay exceeded the ceiling limit of Rs.2,200/- per month in the pre-revised scales of pay, will not be entitled to any overtime allowance. A group of eight persons working as Supervisors, Works Engineer, Section Officer, etc., in the Currency Note Press, Nashik, filed a writ petition on the file of the High Court of Judicature at Bombay in 1988, claiming overtime allowance. The writ petition was transferred to Central Administrative Tribunal in the year 1995. It was tagged along with a few original applications directly filed before the Tribunal, and by a common order dated 25.7.1997, the Central Administrative Tribunal dismissed all the applications on the ground that it had no jurisdiction to deal with a claim relating to overtime allowance arising under the Factories Act, 1948.
• A few writ petitions were filed challenging the order of the Tribunal dated 25.7.1997 on the file of the High Court of Judicature at Bombay. During the pendency of the writ petitions, one more group of supervisory employees (A.K. Biswas and 20 others) filed an application in O.A. No.26 of 2000 on the file of the Central Administrative Tribunal claiming the same reliefs.
• This application was also dismissed by the Tribunal by an order dated 19.1.2001 following the order passed on 25.7.1997 in the other cases. A.K. Biswas and 20 others filed a writ petition on the file of the High Court. By an order dated 27.1.2005, the High Court remanded the matter (A.K. Biswas and others) back to the Tribunal for a fresh consideration. After remand, the Tribunal allowed the application filed by A.K. Biswas and others by an order dated 4.4.2005. But this order was set aside by the High Court in a writ petition filed by the Union of India, on the ground that an amendment to Section 70 of the Bombay Shops and Establishments Act was not considered by the Tribunal. This order of the High Court remanding the matter back to the Tribunal for a second time was dated 31.1.2006. Following the second order of remand passed by the High Court on 31.1.2006 in the case filed by A.K. Biswas.

Issue before the Supreme Court