Anganwadi workers cannot raise industrial disputes before labour courts challenging their dismissal from service since Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme is part of the Department of Social Welfare and “it is not an industry,” the Madras High Court Bench here has ruled.
A Division Bench of Justices V. Ramasubramanian and N. Kirubakaran passed the order while allowing a writ appeal preferred by the Child Development Officer in Kanyakumari district against an order passed by a single judge on January 3, 2013 to reinstate a dismissed anganwadi worker besides paying her 50 per cent of back wages for the period when she was out of service.
The Division Bench pointed out that M. Theresammal was appointed as an anganwadi worker in the ICDS, Nagercoil, on June 30, 1986. A few years later, she was caught by the local people while allegedly attempting to sell in the open market provisions and other goods allotted by the government for the anganwadi.
Initially, she was issued with a memo and suspended from service, and ultimately got dismissed from the job in 1998.
She raised an industrial dispute challenging her dismissal in 2003 and a labour court in Tirunelveli ordered her reinstatement in service besides directing the State to pay back wages for the period when she was kept out of service.
Disposing of a writ petition preferred by the Child Development Officer challenging the award passed by the labour court, a single judge of the High Court confirmed the award with respect to reinstatement and partly modified the order with respect to back wages by restricting it to 50 per cent since the woman had been gainfully employed elsewhere after her dismissal.
However, allowing the writ appeal, the Division Bench held that the anganwadi worker had no right to approach the labour court at the first instance.
It said: “Had the respondent been absorbed into service, she would have become a government servant with a status. Such a person could not have gone to the labour court as the department was not an industry.”
It set aside the single judge’s order as well as the labour court’s award and observed that the worker could work out any other legal remedy if she was entitled to it.
The worker allegedly sold provisions allotted by the government in the open market
