M J Antony: Division of labour pain

Despite the Supreme Court's call to government undertakings to be model employers, they are often as bad as private entities

Vivisection of states leaves a trail of blood and fire. The embers of conflict last for decades. Squabbles over division of assets, sharing of capital and interstate litigation in the Supreme Court over border villages tinged with regional chauvinism rumble on for a long time. The sufferings of employees of state undertakings caught in the discord are hardly noticed. The provisions of the Companies Act and labour laws are flouted and many workers are reduced to starvation and driven to suicide, as revealed in the recent case, State of Jharkhand vs Harihar Yadav.

Bihar was bifurcated and Jharkhand was created in 2000. Several industrial workers were caught in the pangs of this partition. A list of companies was produced in the Supreme Court in 1999. One typical section of workers caught in the cleft was those of Jharkhand Hill Area Lift Irrigation Corporation (JHALCO) and Bihar Hill Area Lift Irrigation Corporation (BHALCO). Their plight was worse than that caused by natural disaster, according to the court. Bihar dragged in the central government too and asserted that BHALCO is not JHALCO and the liability belonged to others. The arguments were returned with equal vigour by the other governments.

The judgment wondered: "How is the court required to react in law when the workers are forced to grapple with a colossal predicament making them feel that they are neither here nor there? We consider it as an unbearable tragedy faced by the unfortunate employees warranting serious attention of this court, for some employees have breathed their last due to starvation, constant stress being unable to meet the keen demands of appetite, and the impecuniosity (sic) that hampered them to avail (sic) timely treatment, and some families have been unwillingly driven to a state of unmeaningful (sic) survival - an animal existence - sans proper food, sans clothes and sans real shelter. It is not because of any natural calamity beyond human control but because the two states abandoned their responsibility to pay despite availing work for some years and thereafter disowning them and nonchalantly shifting the burden to other's shoulder and ultimately arguing in chorus that the employees or their survivors can initiate winding up proceedings to get their dues."

The litigation is continuing in the high court with occasional trips to the Supreme Court. The employees have not received wages since 1995, though their counsel continues to carry a long list of names and dues owed to each of them. Last fortnight, the court asked the Bihar government to pay the wages, with pay revisions and interest, from 1995 till 2001. Jharkhand will pay the dues from 2001 till 2004 when a decision was taken to liquidate the company whose identity and ownership are disputed by the states. The 55-page order can still be nick-picked by clever lawyers for further litigation and their own enrichment. For instance, both the hostile states have been asked to sit down and compute the dues to the workers. They require long lives to get the dues in hand, with middlemen and extortionists waiting in the wings.

The Supreme Court has declared in several judgments that the state should behave like a model employer. In the 1981 judgment, Som Prakash vs Union of India, the court stated: "Social justice is the conscience of our Constitution, the state is the promoter of economic justice, the founding faith which sustains the Constitution and the country is Indian humanity. The public sector is a model employer with a social conscience, not an artificial person without soul to be damned or body to be burnt."

This has been a recurring theme of the apex court, indicating that its hope and trust have been belied by government undertakings. Long passages on the duty of the welfare state can be found in the judgments, Gurmail Singh vs State of Punjab (1987) and State of Haryana vs Piara Singh (1992). After the economic liberalisation, these companies are in a stickier financial situation, with not enough money even to pilfer. Still the court continues its call; only the language has grown more flowery: "It should always be borne in mind that legitimate aspirations of the employees are not guillotined and a situation is not created where hopes end in despair. Hope for everyone is gloriously precious and a model employer should not convert it to be deceitful and treacherous by playing a game of chess with their seniority. A sense of calm sensibility and concerned sincerity should be reflected in every step. An atmosphere of trust has to prevail and when the employees are absolutely sure that their trust shall not be betrayed and they shall be treated with dignified fairness then only the concept of good governance can be concretised." (Bhupen Hazarika vs State of Assam).