Power shock: Hyderabad High Court setback on outsourced staff

Hyderabad: In a setback to the state government and its Power Distribution Companies and the outsourcing employees working in those companies, the Hyderabad High Court on Wednesday suspended the orders issued by the Transmission Corporation Ltd of Telangana absorbing 20,903 outsourcing employees in regular posts. The court also stayed all further process with regard to absorbing of outsourced employees till further orders.

A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice J. Uma Devi, dealing with a petition by one Sravan Kumar challenging the absorption of outsourced employees, granted the interim order. The petitioner challenged the process initiated by the Trans-mission Corporation Ltd of Telangana to absorb outsourced persons in 23,699 regular posts of assistant engineers/sub-engineers and unskilled workers in the Southern and Northern Power Distribution Companies and also Telangana State Power  Generation Corporation.

HC: Outsourced staff can only be engaged
Sarasani Satyam Reddy, senior counsel appearing for the petitioner, reminded the court that on June 29, while dealing with the petition, the bench had refused to stay the ongoing process based on a statement made by the counsel appearing for the Transmission Corporation.

He said that on that day, counsel had stated that the Transco has constituted a committee for verifying the bio-data of the applicants, and after arriving at a reconciliation agreement between the employees unions and the Transco, the committee will place the matter before the Board of Directors of the Transco and only after approval of the Board will the outsourced employees be absorbed into the power utilities.

Mr Reddy said that while adjourning the case, the bench had granted liberty to the petitioner to move an application if something happens in the meanwhile so that it can take up the case.

He submitted that contrary to that statement, Transco has issued orders absorbing the 20,903 outsourced employees.

He said the outsourced employees are working with private contractors and they have nothing to do with the Transco and their salaries also are paid by the contractors who hired them. But the government and its power utilities have absorbed the outsourced employees by adopting illegal methods.

He told the court that December 4, 2016 was fixed as the cut-off date for absorbing outsourced employees.

When the bench sought a response from TS A-G D. Prakash Reddy, he urged the court to grant time to get instructions.

When the bench resumed the hearing in the evening, the A-G submitted that the outsourced employees have been working in the power utilities for the past several years and though they have not directly worked under the power utilities, the government has decided to protect them from exploitation by the contractors.

He said that the outsourced employees were divided into four grades, as many of them are engineering graduates, diploma holders, and certificate holders, and the government has fixed Rs 22,000 as pay for the first grade, Rs 18,000 for the second grade, Rs 15,000 for the third grade, and Rs 13,000 for the fourth grade, as the contractors have been paying lower salaries.

He contended that the state government and the Transco have the power to either regularise or absorb services of contract employees or outsourced employees and everything was done in accordance with the law and rules.

The bench said that the government cannot regularise or absorb the outsourced employees as they are not directly working under it; the government can engage them directly by fixing a salary without the involvement of the contractors.

While suspending the order of absorption, the bench adjourned the case for four weeks by issuing notices to the respondents and asking them to file counter affidavits.