The Kerala High Court has held that inclination or willingness to do headload work with the consent of the employer will satisfy the requirements of the Kerala Headload Workers Act to obtain registration as a headload worker.
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Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas made the ruling while allowing a writ petition filed by Manzoor E., proprietor of a cashew packing unit in Kollam, and three others challenging the order of the assistant labour officer, Kollam, rejecting the application for registering their employees as headload workers.
Counsel for the petitioners,T.R. Rajan submitted that permanent workers had been employed to carry out all work, including loading and unloading operations. The area was later brought under the Kerala Headload Workers (Regulation of Employment and Welfare) Scheme.
Therefore, the proprietor sought registration of their own workers as per Rule 26A of the Kerala Headload Workers Rules, 1981.
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The applications were rejected, saying that the workers were carrying out the work of sorting and packing and that they could not be registered as headload workers and that they could utilise the services of the registered headload workers of the area. The workers of the petitioner were not headload workers having any registration or identity cards.
The court observed that the government’s reasoning to reject the application - that one should have done headload work in the establishment to be a headload worker - would lead to an anomalous situation, where, no new persons could ever be registered as a headload worker in a scheme-covered area.
The court set aside the order of the labour officer rejecting the application for registering the workers as headload workers and directed to give registration and identity cards within one month.