Kanwar Bhan vs Presiding Officer

G.S. Sandhawalia, J.—Challenge in the present writ petition is to the award dated 21.02.2014 (Annexure P-5) passed by the Labour Court, Chandigarh whereby, the reference has been answered against the workman.

The claim of the petitioner in his claim statement was that he was appointed as a Guard on 10.05.2002 and his name was sponsored by the Zila Sainik Board, Panipat to the Chief Manager, State Bank of India, G.T. Road, Panipat. He had worked till 28.10.2002 for more than 92 days and his services were terminated without following the proper procedure under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (in short ''the Act''). Violation of Sections 25-F, 25-G, 25-H and 25-N of the Act was alleged. It was submitted that juniors had been kept in service and fresh appointments had been made, details of which are given in para no. 9.

In the written statement filed by the bank, it was submitted that any employment during leave vacancy would automatically come to an end after the expiry of leave period of the person in whose place a substitute was employed. The workman was engaged on 81 occasions by the G.T. Road Branch and on 7 occasions by the Ahar Branch and it was an intermittent appointment. 240 days had not been completed and, therefore, there was no violation of the mandatory provisions of the Act. The fact that juniors had been appointed was also specifically denied in the written statement. The Labour Court had found that since 240 days were not complete, the question of violation of Section 25-F of the Act would not come into play.

Counsel for the petitioner has vehemently submitted that since the workman had worked for 92 days, therefore, the provisions of the Punjab Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1958 would come into play.

The said argument has rightly been rejected by the Labour Court after referring to Section 22 of the Act which provides that the employee is entitled to approach the Judicial Magistrate for awarding of compensation which is to be equivalent to the two months'' salary in case there is any violation of the provisions of the Act. A perusal of Annexure P-1, which was the deployment letter would go on to show that the petitioner was deployed by the Secretary, Zila Parishad, Panipat for a period of 3 months as a Guard and it was the specific case of the respondent-bank that he was working against leave vacancy and his services were as a stop gap arrangement and to be discontinued on joining of the duty of the regular employee. Nothing has been shown to this Court as to when the alleged juniors were appointed and the date of their appointments had not been mentioned and neither any reference has been made to any evidence which has been led by the workman to show that the persons who were appointed subsequent to him were retained.

The facts as narrated above would thus go on to show that the workman had only been appointed as a stop gap arrangement against the leave vacancy on account of the requisition sent by the bank and had only worked for around 3 months. Thus, the question of the violation of any mandatory provisions of the Act does not arise in the present case. There is no ground to interfere in the well reasoned award passed by the Labour Court and the present writ petition is dismissed in limine.