Gurcharan Singh vs The Senior Executive Engineer, HPSEB

Deepak Gupta, J.—This petition is directed against the award of the learned Presiding Judge, H.P. Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court, Shimla dated 7.7.2010 whereby he rejected the claim of the Petitioner.

The undisputed facts are that the Petitioner was engaged as a daily-waged beldar with the Respondent Board in the year 1993. His services were terminated on 20.8.1999 and thereafter the Petitioner filed an O.A. No. 12 of 2000 which was allowed by the Tribunal on 5th October, 2001. The operative portion of the order reads as follows:

The Respondents have opposed this application. However, as per Annexure-RA/I which is a mandays chart of the Applicant, the Applicant had completed more than 240 days in the preceding 12 months from the date of his termination. Admittedly, notice u/s 25-F/Clause 14(2) of the H.P. S.E.B. Standing Order has not been issued. That being so, the oral termination of the services of the Applicant is illegal and bad in law. This oral termination is therefore, quashed and the Respondents are directed to re-engage the Applicant at the same place of in the vicinity thereof from where his services were terminated. The period between disengagement and re-engagement will be counted for seniority but the Applicant will not be entitled for any back wages.

A bare reading of this order shows that though the Petitioner was not in service and was not granted back-wages, but for the purposes of seniority etc. he was ordered to be deemed to be in service. This basically meant that the Petitioner was only denied benefit of back-wages, but for all other intents and purposes the Petitioner was deemed to be in service. The aforesaid order was passed on 5.10.2001 and the services of the Petitioner were again terminated.

The Petitioner sought reference to the Labour Court for declaring his termination illegal and the following reference was sent for adjudication to the Labour Court:

Whether the termination of services of Shri Gurcharan Singh S/o Shri Kaura Ram, workman by the Senior Executive Engineer, Electrical Division, HPSEB Nalagarh, District Solan, H.P. w.e.f. 25.12.2001 without complying the provisions of Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 is proper and justified? If not, what relief of service benefits and amount of compensation, the above aggrieved workman is entitled to.

The Labour Court held that since the Petitioner had not actually worked for 240 days prior to the termination of his services on 25.12.2001 he was not entitled to the benefit of Section 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act.

In my view the approach of the learned Labour Court was perverse. Services of the Petitioner stood terminated. He challenged this order before the learned Tribunal, which allowed his application and held the termination of his services to be bad. The natural consequence would have been that the Petitioner should have been held entitled to all consequential benefits, but the Tribunal decided not to give the benefit of back-wages to the Petitioner, but made it clear that for the purpose of seniority he would be deemed to be in service. Once the order of termination was quashed, the Petitioner is deemed to be in service and this fact was totally glossed over by the learned Industrial Tribunal. How could the Petitioner be actually working when his services had been illegally terminated? After his termination was set-aside, it meant that he was in service throughout. Therefore, it is obvious that the Award of the learned Presiding Judge of the learned Tribunal in so far as it held that Section 25-F is not applicable is totally illegal and is set aside.

Having held so, the next question which arises is whether the Board actually complied with the Section 25-F or not. This matter has to be decided by the learned Labour Court itself. Therefore, the matter is remanded to the learned Labour Court to decide the question, whether the Electricity Board has complied with the provisions of Section 25-F or not. Parties through their learned Counsel are directed to appear before the learned Labour Court on 30.5.2011. Since, the evidence has already been completed and the case is ripe for arguments, the learned Labour Court is directed to dispose of the matter latest by 30th June, 2011. No costs.