Legal Reference Library

Royal Western India Turf Club Ltd. v. E.S.I. Corporation and Ors. The Supreme Court rejected submissions of the Royal Western India Turf Club Ltd. that casual workers employed by it were outside the ambit of the Employees State Insurance Act, 1948. Terming such an approach "tenuous", the Court held the Club liable for making contributions to the Employees State Insurance Corporation, with interest. The Club's submissions before the Court that being temporary staff, engaged on race-days for issuing tickets, were not covered as 'employees' under the Act were rejected. Also were rejected 'consent terms' evidence such a status quo as the same pertained to an earlier period in which other establishments of the Turf Club were also covered. Relevant Employees State Insurance Corporation v. Hyderabad Race Club MANU/SC/0554/2004 Employees' State Insurance Corporation v. Gnanambikai Mills Ltd. MANU/TN/0308/1974 Section 2 Employees' State Insurance A...

The nettlesome problem of provident fund for casual construction workers returned to the Delhi High Court with the Builders Association of India and several construction firms alleging that they should not be compelled to pay their contribution because the workers change places and could not be traced. The court had in the past asked the government to put in place a workable scheme to benefit the labourers who change employers and work place very often. Since this has not been done satisfactorily, the employers should not be compelled to contribute to the fund, they argued. The high court dismissed their petitions stating that the problem of logistics in finding the workers and paying them is different from the liability of the employers. The argument that unless the provident fund authorities and the government could show that they had a "mechanism as per which the workmen whose job was portable could avail the benefit of the money lying to their credit all over India, no liabili...