The Supreme Court has chided the Centre for adopting "unfair" labour practices of employing a large number of casual labourers for six months and then giving "artificial breaks" by terminating their services to avoid regularisation. A bench of justices D K Jain and H L Dattu expressed anguish that the central government,instead of being a role model employer,had chosen to adopt such anti-labour policies for the past 40 years in the Border Roads Organisation (BRO). "We are constrained to observe that the conduct of the appellants (union government) in engaging casual workers for a period of less than six months,and giving them artificial breaks so as to ensure that they do not become eligible for permanent status,as evidenced from the additional affidavit dated 23rd April,2010,does not behove the Union of India and its instrumentalities which are supposed to be model employers," Justice Jain writing the judgement said. The apex court made the remarks after examining an affidavit filed by the Centre admitting the fact that a large number of casual labourers have worked with "Project Vartak" for a number of years but their period of engagement at no stage had existed more than six months at a time.
