Boota Singh vs Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Bathinda & Anr.

KIRTI SINGH, J. (ORAL)

The petitioner has filed the present writ petition seeking modification of the Award dated 31.05.2000 (Annexure P-4) passed by the Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Bathinda, in Reference No.92/97, to the extent it declines back wages to the petitioner. By the said Award, the Labour Court held the termination of the petitioner's services w.e.f. 16.04.1996 to be illegal and directed his reinstatement with continuity of service, but declined back wages.

Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that once the termination has been found to be illegal and the petitioner has been ordered to be reinstated with continuity of service, back wages ought to have followed as a natural consequence. It is contended that the petitioner had specifically pleaded that he remained unemployed after his termination and that there was no material before the Labour Court to establish that he was gainfully employed during the intervening period. Learned counsel submits that the Labour Court erred in denying back wages merely on the basis of the petitioner's statement that he assisted his father in cultivation, which, by itself, could not amount to proof of gainful employment.

Per contra, learned counsel for respondent No.2 supports the impugned Award and submits that the grant of back wages is not automatic upon a finding of illegal termination and is a discretionary relief to be moulded on the facts of each case, as held by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in U.P. State Brassware Corpn. Ltd. v. Uday Narain Pandey, (2006) 1 SCC

It is submitted that the Labour Court, after appreciating the evidence on record, including the admission of the petitioner in his cross-examination, recorded a finding that it was not a fit case for grant of back wages. Such finding, being based on appreciation of evidence, does not warrant interference in writ jurisdiction.

I have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the relevant material on record.

This Court, while exercising supervisory jurisdiction under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India over an Award of the Labour Court, does not sit in appeal over the findings recorded therein. Re-appreciation of evidence merely to arrive at a different conclusion is not warranted unless the finding under challenge is shown to be perverse, based on no evidence, or vitiated by an error of law apparent on the face of the record. The question, therefore, is not whether another view could possibly be taken on the material available, but whether the view taken by the Labour Court is one which could reasonably have been arrived at on such material.

On the question of back wages, it is equally well settled that the same do not follow as an automatic or inevitable consequence of a finding that the termination was illegal. In this regard, a gainful reference can be made to certain authoritative pronouncements on the subject. In “Jagbir Singh v. Haryana State Agriculture Marketing Board and another”, 2009 (3) SCT 790, the Hon’ble Supreme Court held that reinstatement with back wages is not automatic and may be wholly inappropriate in a given fact situation even though the termination of an employee is in contravention of the prescribed procedure. Further held that compensation instead of reinstatement would meet the ends of justice. Moreover, the award of reinstatement with full back wages in a case where the workman has completed 240 days of work in a year preceding the date of termination, particularly, daily wagers was not found to be proper and instead compensation was awarded. The relevant observations are extracted hereunder:-

In U.P. State Brassware Corpn. Ltd. v. Uday Narain Pandey, (2006) 1 SCC 479, the Hon'ble Supreme Court held that the relief of back wages has to be moulded having regard to the facts and circumstances of each case. The position was further explained in Deepali Gundu Surwase v. Kranti Junior Adhyapak Mahavidyalaya (D.Ed.) and others, (2013) 10 SCC 324, wherein the Hon'ble Supreme Court recognised that, where a workman asserts that he remained unemployed during the intervening period, such assertion may be rebutted by the employer by placing appropriate material on record. The entitlement to back wages thus has to be determined upon an assessment of the material relevant to the period for which such wages are claimed.

In the present case, the petitioner had pleaded that he was not gainfully employed after his termination. However, while appearing as his own witness, he admitted in cross-examination that he was assisting his father in cultivating land owned by his father. The Labour Court took note of this admission and also noticed that the petitioner had not stated in his evidence as to who was supporting him during the intervening period. The said circumstance, emerging from the petitioner's own testimony, was plainly relevant to the question of the appropriate monetary relief. It is not necessary, for the purpose of deciding the present petition, to hold that the petitioner was gainfully employed or that his assistance in cultivation necessarily generated any particular income. What is material is that the Labour Court was entitled to take the said circumstance into account while determining whether full back wages ought to be awarded.

Even measured against the standard laid down in Deepali Gundu Surwase v. Kranti Junior Adhyapak Mahavidyalaya (D.Ed.) and others, (2013) 10 SCC 324, which requires the employer to specifically plead and lead cogent evidence that the workman was gainfully employed at wages substantially equal to what he would otherwise have earned, the material before the Labour Court was not confined to a bare inference drawn from the petitioner's admission. The management had specifically pleaded that the petitioner was gainfully employed and was earning more than his previous wages, and this pleaded case stood corroborated, to the relevant extent, by the petitioner's own admission in cross-examination that he was assisting his father in cultivating land, coupled with his failure to explain who, if not himself, was supporting him during the intervening period. Taken together, this was material capable of satisfying the employer's burden under Deepali Gundu Surwase,(supra) and it cannot be said that the Labour Court's finding on back wages was reached without regard to that standard or rests on no evidence answering it.

From the record, it is discernible that it was the specific stand taken by the management before the Labour Court that the petitioner was gainfully employed and was earning more than the wages which he had earlier received. The Labour Court, therefore, had before it not merely the petitioner's assertion of unemployment, but also the material emerging from his own cross-examination and the corresponding plea of the management. On consideration of the same, it chose to grant reinstatement with continuity of service but declined the monetary relief of back wages. Such determination was within the province of the Labour Court while moulding the relief on the evidence before it.

Viewed in the above backdrop, the conclusion of the Labour Court cannot be characterised as either arbitrary or unsupported by the record. The Court took into consideration a circumstance emanating from the petitioner's own testimony and, on an overall assessment of the material before it, declined to award back wages. The petitioner's grievance, in substance, is that greater weight ought to have been attached to his assertion of unemployment and lesser weight to his admission regarding assistance in cultivation. Such a challenge pertains to the appreciation of evidence. This Court, in exercise of its limited supervisory jurisdiction, would not substitute its own assessment for that of the Labour Court in the absence of perversity or a patent error of law.

No such infirmity has been demonstrated in the present case. The finding declining back wages is based on material forming part of the record and cannot be said to be perverse, based on no evidence, or vitiated by any error of law apparent on the face of the record. Consequently, no ground for interference with the Award, to the limited extent challenged in the present petition, is made out.

Consequently, finding no merit in the writ petition, the same is dismissed.

Pending application(s), if any, also stand disposed of.