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Judgment
KIRTI SINGH, J. (ORAL)
The present writ petition has been filed under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India seeking quashing of the award dated 06.11.2012 (Annexure P-4) passed by respondent No. 1, whereby the reference raised on behalf of the petitioner-workman was answered against him and his claim for reinstatement with continuity of service, full back wages and other consequential benefits was declined.
Briefly stated as per the pleaded facts, the petitioner was engaged by the respondent-management as a daily wager with effect from 01.01.1994, uptil 01.01.2006, when his services were terminated by the respondent concerned without any notice, pay or retrenchment compensation, despite the fact that he had worked for more than 240 days of service in the preceding year. Aggrieved, the petitioner served a demand notice dated 03.8.2026 upon the management under Section 2-A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (for short ‘the Act of 1947’), claiming therein that his services were terminated in violation of the provisions of Section 25-F, 25-G and 25-H of the Act of 1947. Conciliation proceedings having failed, the appropriate Government referred the industrial dispute for adjudication to the Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court, Rohtak, where it was registered as Reference No. 44 of 2008, calling upon the Labour Court to determine "whether termination of services of workman Shri Dalbir Singh is legal and justified or not? If not so, to what amount of back wages, the workman is entitled along with his reinstatement?”
The petitioner filed his claim statement, to which the management filed its written statement (Annexure P-2) raising preliminary objections as well as contesting the claim on merits. The petitioner filed a replication dated 11.10.2006 (Annexure P-3) denying the stand taken by the management and reiterating the averments contained in the claim statement.
Upon completion of pleadings of the parties, the Labour Court framed following issues:-
(1)Whether termination of services of Shri Dalbir Singh is justified and, if not, to what relief he is entitled to ? OPW
(2)Whether the management does not fall within the definition of industry ?
(3)Relief.
In support of his case, the petitioner examined himself as WW-1 and also examined an official witness and reiterated the averments as raised in the demand notice. The petitioner further examined Sh. Balraj Singh Dahiya, ASWDE O/o Irrigation Department, Division Rohtak as WW-2, who produced the copy of working detail of the petitioner as Ex. W-1. The said witness also deposed that there is no separate attendance register and the attendance is marked on the muster rolls itself.
Vide impugned award dated 06.11.2012, the Presiding Officer, Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court, Rohtak, decided Issue No. 1 in favour of the respondent-management by holding that the petitioner had failed to establish that he had completed 240 days of continuous service in the twelve calendar months preceding the alleged termination. Issue No. 2 was decided in favour of the petitioner-workman by holding that with regard to the said issue, neither any argument nor any evidence has been led by the respondent-department. Consequently, the Labour Court answered the reference against the petitioner and declined the relief of reinstatement or back wages. Aggrieved thereby, the petitioner has approached this Court by way of the present writ petition.
Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the learned Industrial Tribunal erred in not considering the fact that the petitioner was appointed with the respondent-department on 01.1.1994 as a daily wager and worked continuously upto 01.1.2006. Moreover, there was no specific rebuttal on the part of the management-respondent to the said fact. Rather, the respondent-department even admitted that the attendance records of the petitioner-workman were exclusively in its possession; that the petitioner had worked with the department for more than 10 years; and that they had not complied with the relevant provisions of the Act of 1947. It is further argued that the Labour Court itself observed in the impugned award that compliance of Section 25-F of the Act of 1947 had not been made, and yet declined the benefit of reinstatement and consequential benefits to the petitioner. Therefore, it is prayed that the impugned award is patently illegal and deserves to be quashed.
Per contra, learned State counsel supports the impugned award and submits that the petitioner was never appointed as Beldar, but was merely engaged as a part time watchman, depending upon the operational requirements relating to irrigation channels and drains. It is submitted that the petitioner had worked only intermittently on muster rolls and had never completed 240 days of continuous service in the twelve calendar months immediately preceding the alleged termination. Learned counsel further submits that the management produced the entire available attendance record before the Labour Court, which was also proved through the official witness summoned by the petitioner himself, and, therefore, no adverse inference could be drawn against the management. It is argued that the burden to establish continuous service rested upon the petitioner, who failed to discharge the same by leading any cogent documentary evidence. It is further submitted that the present petition is eveb liable to be dismissed on the ground of delay and laches, as the impugned award was passed on 06.11.2012, whereas the present writ petition was filed only in the year 2017, after an unexplained delay of nearly five years. Learned counsel accordingly contends that the findings recorded by the Labour Court are based upon due appreciation of the oral and documentary evidence available on record, are well reasoned, and call for no interference in exercise of the extraordinary writ jurisdiction of this Court.
I have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the relevant material on record.
Before proceeding further, a gainful reference can be made to the proposition of law as discussed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Civil Appeal No.6511 of 2005 titled as Surendranagar District Panchayat Vs. Dahyabhai Amarsinh, relevant paras whereof reads thus:-
“8.As per Section 25F, no workman who is in continuous service for not less than one year under an employer shall be retrenched by that employer unless conditions laid therein are fulfilled. The retrenchment is defined in Clause (oo) of Section 2 of the Industrial Disputes Act 14 of 1947 (hereinafter referred to as Act). Under the definition termination of the service of a workman by the employer by any reason whatsoever, otherwise than, as a punishment, by way of disciplinary action, would constitute retrenchment except in cases accepted in the Section itself, they are :- i) a voluntary retirement of a workman; ii) retirement of a workman on reaching the age of superannuation; iii) termination of the service of a workman as a result of nonrenewal of the contract of employment; or iv) termination of the service on the ground of continued ill- health of the workman. Unless these reasons are existed and proved, termination by the employer of the service of a workman for any reason, would constitute retrenchment. Therefore, if the employer is to retrench the workmen employed in his industry who is in continuous service has to follow the provisions of Section 25F of the Act. To attract provisions of Section 25F, the workman claiming protection under it, has to prove that there exists relationship of employer and employee; that he is a workman within the meaning of Section 2(s) of the Act; the establishment in which he is employed is an industry within the meaning of the Act and he must have put in not less than one year of continuous service as defined by Section 25B under the employer. These conditions are cumulative. If any of these conditions are missing the provisions of Section 25F will not attract. To get relief from the court the workman has to establish that he has right to continue in service and that his service has been terminated without complying with the provisions of Section 25F of the Act. The Section postulates three conditions to be fulfilled by an employer for getting a valid retrenchment, namely:-i) One month's clear notice in writing indicating the reasons for retrenchment or that the workman has been paid wages for the period of notice in lieu of such notice; ii) payment of retrenchment compensation which shall be equivalent to 15 days average pay for every completed year of continuous service or any part thereof, in excess of six months; iii) a notice to the appropriate Government in the prescribed manner.
9.To attract the provisions of Section 25F, one of the conditions required is that the workman is employed in any industry for a continuous period which would not be not less than one year. Section 25B of the Act defines continuous service for the purposes of Chapter V-A "Lay-off and Retrenchment". The purport of this Section is that if a workman has put in an uninterrupted service of the establishment, including the service which may be interrupted on account of sickness, authorised leave, an accident, a strike which is not illegal, a lock-out or cessation of work, that is not due to any fault on the part of the workman, shall be said to be a continuous service, for that period. Thus the workman shall be said to be in continuous service for one year i.e., 12 months irrespective of the number of days he has actually worked with interrupted service, permissible under Section 25B. However, the workmen must have been in service during the period, i.e., not only on the date when he actually worked but also on the days he could not work under the circumstances set out in sub-section (1). The workman must be in the employment of the employer concerned on the days he has actually worked but also on the days on which he has not worked. The import of sub-section (1) of Section 25B is that the workman should be in the employment of the employer for the continuous, uninterrupted period for one year except the period the absence is permissible as mentioned hereinabove. Subsection (2) of Section 25B introduces the fiction to the effect that even if the workman is not in continuous service within the meaning of Clause (i) of Section 25B for the period of one year or six months he shall be deemed to be in continuous service for that period under an employer if he has actually worked for the days specified in clauses (a) and (b) of sub-section (2). By the legal fiction of sub-section 2(a) (i), the workman shall be deemed to be in continuous service for one year if he is employed underground in a mine for 190 days or 240 days in any other case. Provisions of the Section postulate that if the workman has put in at least 240 days with his employer, immediately prior to the date of retrenchment, he shall be deemed to have served with the employer for a period of one year to get the benefit of Section 25F.
16.In Mohan Lal v. Management of M/s. Bharat Electronics Ltd., (1981) 3 SCC 225, it is said by this Court that before a workman can claim retrenchment not being in consonance of Section 25F of the Industrial Disputes Act, he has to show that he has been in continuous service of not less than one year with the employer who had retrenched him from service.
17.In Range Forest Officer v. S.T. Hadimani, (2002) 3 SCC 25 - (At Page 26, Para 3), this Court held that "In our opinion the Tribunal was not right in placing the onus on the management without first determining on the basis of cogent evidence that the respondent had worked for more than 240 days in the year preceding his termination. It was the case of the claimant that he had so worked but this claim was denied by the appellant. It was then for the claimant to lead evidence to show that he had in fact worked for 240 days in the year preceding his termination. Filing of an affidavit is only his own statement in his favour and that cannot be regarded as sufficient evidence for any Court or tribunal to come to the conclusion that a workman had, in fact, worked for 240 days in a year. No proof of receipt of salary or wages for 240 days or order or record of appointment or engagement for this period was produced by the workman. On this ground alone, the award is liable to be set aside."
19.In the light of the aforesaid, it was necessary for the workman to produce the relevant material to prove that he has actually worked with the employer for not less than 240 days during the period twelve calendar months preceding the date of termination. What we find is that apart from the oral evidence the workman has not produced any evidence to prove the fact that he has worked for 240 days. No proof of receipt of salary or wages or any record or order in that regard was produced; no coworker was examined; muster roll produced by the employer has not been contradicted. It is improbable that workman who claimed to have worked with the appellant for such a long period would not possess any documentary evidence to prove nature of his engagement and the period of work he had undertaken with his employer. Therefore, we are of the opinion that the workman has failed to discharge his burden that he was in employment for 240 days during the preceding 12 months of the date of termination of his service. The Courts below have wrongly drawn an adverse inference for non production of the record of the workman for ten years. The scope of enquiry before the Labour Court was confined to only 12 months preceding the date of termination to decide the question of continuation of service for the purpose of Section 25F of the Industrial Disputes Act. The workman has never contended that he was regularly employed in the Panchayat for one year to claim the uninterrupted period of service as required under Section 25B(1) of the Act. In the fact and situation and in the light of the law on the subject, we find that the workman- respondent is not entitled for the protection or compliance of Section 25F of the Act before his service was terminated by the employer. As regards noncompliance of Sections 25G and 25H suffice is to say that witness Vinod Mishra examined by the appellant has stated that no seniority list was maintained by the department of daily wagers. In the absence of regular employment of the workman, the appellant was not expected to maintain seniority list of the employees engaged on daily wages and in the absence of any proof by the respondent regarding existence of the seniority list and his so called seniority no relief could be given to him for non-compliance of provisions of the Act. The Courts could have drawn adverse inference against the appellant only when seniority list was proved to be in existence and then not produced before the Court. In order to entitle the Court to draw inference unfavourable to the party, the Court must be satisfied that evidence is in existence and could have been proved.”
Reverting to the case in hand, the controversy before the Labour Court essentially centred on a single issue, namely, whether the services of the petitioner had been illegally terminated by the management, for unless the petitioner established the same, the question of examining compliance with the mandatory requirements of Section 25-F of the Act of 1947 would not arise.
Upon an appreciation of the oral as well as documentary evidence adduced by the parties, the Labour Court found no reason to disbelieve the evidence led by the management, including the available muster roll records showing that the workman had worked only intermittently and had not completed 240 days of service in any calendar year. Thus, the learned Labour Court held that the workman had failed to discharge the preliminary burden of proving continuous service of 240 days in the twelve months preceding the alleged termination on 01.01.2006. The learned Labour Court further held that no adverse inference could be drawn against the management as the allegations of violation of Section 25-F of the Act of 1947 were not established.
Taking into consideration the cumulative effect of the evidence on record, the Labour Court accepted the management's plea and answered the reference against the petitioner. The findings so recorded are pure findings of fact based upon appreciation of the evidence on record and cannot be said to suffer from perversity or any manifest legal infirmity. Merely because another view may also be possible on the same evidence would not justify interference by this Court in exercise of its writ jurisdiction.
It is trite that while exercising jurisdiction under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India, this Court does not sit as a Court of ap-peal over the findings of fact recorded by the Labour Court. The scope of ju-dicial review is confined to examining whether the impugned Award suffers from perversity, patent illegality, jurisdictional error or is based on no evi-dence. Re-appreciation of evidence lies outside the ambit of the supervisory jurisdiction of this Court. Learned counsel for the petitioner has not been able to demonstrate that the findings recorded by the Labour Court suffer from any such infirmity. The impugned Award reflects a due and proper ap-preciation of the pleadings, the evidence adduced by the parties and the set-tled legal principles governing the controversy. No ground, therefore, is made out to warrant interference.
Consequently, finding no merit in the present writ petition, the same is dismissed.
Pending miscellaneous application(s), if any, shall also stand disposed of.