Hindustan Lever Ltd. v Ashok Vishnu Kate

• Hindustan Lever employed workers as "badli" (substitute) and "temporary" for several years continuously
• These workers performed the same duties as permanent workers: same shifts, same machines, same supervisors
• Despite completing 240+ days of continuous service (the statutory threshold), they were kept in temporary status
• Purpose of prolonged temporary status: avoid obligations of permanency (retrenchment protection, PF, gratuity, increments)
• Workers demanded regularization; company refused

1. Whether employing workers as temporary/badli for years while they perform duties of a permanent nature constitutes an unfair labour practice.

• Keeping workers as "temporary" for years when they perform permanent nature duties IS an unfair labour practice specified in Schedule V (now Second Schedule IRC 2020)
• Workers who have completed 240 days (now 1 year under IRC 2020) of continuous service performing permanent nature duties MUST be regularized
• The employer cannot benefit from its own unfair practice of artificially maintaining temporary status
• Directed regularization of the affected workers

Prolonged temporary/badli status is a device to deny workers their statutory rights (permanency, retrenchment protection, PF/gratuity). Employing workers continuously for years while keeping them "temporary" on paper is an unfair labour practice because it denies them benefits that substantive law intends them to have. Form cannot override substance; extended continuous service performing permanent duties = permanent status.