G. Gruhalakshmi vs Director of Sugar Special Commissioner of Sugar, Hyd. and another

This writ petition is filed seeking a direction to the respondents to regularise the services of the petitioner as a telephone operator in respondent 2 Organisation.

The petitioner contends that respondent 2 is a Federation of Co-operative Sugar Factories operating within the State of A.P. and that it is a Co-operative Society registered under A.P. Co-operative Societies Act, 1964. It is further averred that respondent 1, Director of Sugar/ Special Commissioner of Sugar, Hyderabad exercises general supervision over various Co-operative Sugar Factories in the State including respondent 2 and further that as on the date of the institution of the writ petition respondent 1 is also the official person incharge of respondent 2 having been appointed as such u/s 32(7) of the A.P. Co-operative Societies Act, 1964. According to the petitioner she was appointed as a telephone operator on daily wages on 30-9-1990 on at wage of Rs.30 per day. No order of appointment has admittedly been issued. It is averred that she is a graduate and holds a technical qualification of a certificate issued by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs in the operation of "Private branch exchange switch boards", thus she is qualified, is the contention to be appointed regularly as a telephone operator. It is further stated that she has been working without any break in service but respondent 2 has been denying wages on Sundays and other public holidays. It is also stated that daily wages were enhanced from Rs.30 to Rs.70 per day with effect from 1-7-1974.

On the aforesaid contentions the petitioner urges regularisation of her services in respondent 2 and grant of time scale of pay in the post of telephone operator as is being paid to a regular telephone operator apropos the instructions of the State Government in G.O. Ms. No.212, dated 22-4-1994. The denial of these benefits is urged to be in violation of Article 21 of the Constitution.

Respondent 1 and respondent 2 have filed separate counter affidavits. A threshold objection is taken as to the maintainability of the writ petition on the ground that respondent 2 is not amenable to the jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 not being an instrumentality of the State. It is further averred in the counter-affidavits that having regard to the fact that the regular incumbent of the post of telephone operator is frequently proceeding on leave, the petitioner is being engaged for broken spells as telephone operator on daily wage basis to avoid dislocation of work. It is further stated that appointments in respondent 2 organisation have to be made following the regular recruitment procedure ordained in the bye-laws and that was how the regular incumbent was also appointed and that the petitioner is not entitled to automatic regularisation. The applicability of the instructions set out in G.O. Ms. No.212, dated 22-4-1994 is denied and the respondents state that these instructions are inapplicable to respondent 2.

The petitioner''s case with regard to the maintainability of the writ petition hangs on the slender thread of a submission that respondent 1 is the person incharge of respondent 2 u/s 32(7) of the Act. Nothing else is pleaded or urged at the bar to substantiate the contention that respondent 2 is an agency or instrumentality of the State. It is settled principle that every manner of open textured control by the State in or on an organisation does not invest with the rubric of an instrumentality of the State. An overwhelming funding or share holding by the State, a deep and persuasive control, the organisation being at an earlier point of time a department of the Government or functionally the organisation discharging duties which are classically ordained on the State are some of the tests, one or more of which have to be satisfied for an organisation to be construed an instrumentality of the State and thus bound by Constitutional and public law obligations. The writ petition does not plead anything to warrant an inference that respondent 2 is an agency or instrumentality of the State. In the circumstances, the petitioner''s contention that respondent 2 is an agency and instrumentality of the State, thus amenable to the constitutional discipline of Articles 14, 16 and 21 does not commend itself to this Court.

In the result, the relief claimed in the writ petition cannot be granted. The writ petition fails and is accordingly dismissed. No costs.