Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
Vikramajit Sen and Prafulla C. Pant

JUDGMENT

Vikramajit Sen, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. The legal nodus that arise in the present Appeals before us are whether the existing canteen at Moradabad Division of the Northern Railway i.e., the subject Canteen, is located in a 'Factory' within the meaning of Section 46 of the Factories Act, 1948; and consequently, whether the services of the staff employed in the subject Canteen ought to be regularized. These Appeals have been preferred against the judgment passed by the Division Bench of the High Court of New Delhi in LPA No. 19 of 2012, whereby the Orders passed in Writ Petition No. 6582 of 2003 and Review Petition No. 670 of 2011 have been set aside and it has been held that the subject Canteen is a 'Non Recognized and Non Statutory' canteen.

3. We shall briefly narrate the facts leading up to the present lis. The Appellants are employed in the subject Canteen, which has been running within the precincts of the Divisional Railway Manager (hereinafter referred to as "the DRM"), Moradabad since 1940 and has been catering to more than 100 employees, (in fact, well over 500) since its establishment. In 1963, the Respondent No. 1, namely the Chairman, Railway Board, issued a Circular No. E(W) 63/GN 1-2 dated 09.07.1963 for setting up of canteens as a welfare measure, whenever and wherever the staff strength exceeds 100. The existing Staff Canteen, i.e. the subject Canteen continued to operate smoothly, even thereafter. It is the uncontroverted case of the Appellants that when the subject Canteen underwent severe financial losses in 1971, it was the Respondent No. 3, i.e. the DRM of Northern Railways, Moradabad Division, who decided to constitute a committee of three senior Railway Divisional Officers to examine whether the affairs of the subject Canteen could be taken over by the Railways. It was decided by the said committee that the affairs of the subject Canteen be revived; and an ad hoc committee comprising five Railway Officers, which was to be replaced later on by a regular management committee, be appointed to manage the affairs of the said Canteen. It was in these circumstances that the subject Canteen was formally taken over by the Respondent Railways with effect from 18.01.1972. Subsequently, Respondent No. 1 issued Circular No. E (W) 83 CN1-8 dated 13.04.1987 laying down that prior approval of the Railway Board would be mandatory for setting up of a new canteen as well as for increasing the staff strength of existing canteens. The Appellants assert that the mandate laid down in the Circular of 1987 was not applicable to the subject Canteen as it was validly operational since 1940, and was also in consonance with the Circular of 1963. Ergo, no prior approval was required to be taken from the Railway Board since the subject Canteen was not a new canteen. It appears that thereafter on 19.09.1996, Respondent No. 2, the General Manager of Northern Railways wrote a letter to the Railway Board requesting it to accord recognition to the subject Canteen in the interest of the welfare of the employees. However, vide Order dated 9.09.2002, the Ministry of Railways rejected this request on the premise that if recognition were to be granted to the subject Canteen, the existing staff would nevertheless not be absorbed automatically, and they would have to compete with other eligible........