Shri Maha Singh vs Presiding Officer, Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court, Panipat and Another

Rajesh Bindal, J.—The workman in the present case has challenged the award dated 7.9.2009, passed by Presiding Officer, Industrial Tribunal-cumLabour Court, Panipat (for short, ''the Tribunal''), whereby reference was decided on a preliminary issue regarding maintainability. Referring to a judgment of Hon''ble the Supreme Court in Secretary, State of Karnataka and Others Vs. Umadevi and Others, the Tribunal held the reference to be not maintainable as the petitioner was working on daily wages. Learned counsel for the petitioner-workman, referring to a subsequent judgment of Hon''ble the Supreme Court in Anoop Sharma v. Executive Engineer Public Health Division No. 1, Panipat (Haryana), ( 2010) 3 SCC 497, submitted that the issue before the Tribunal being as to whether there was compliance to the provisions of Section 25F of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (for short, ''the Act'') or not and not for regularisation of services. The judgment in Uma Devi''s case (supra) was not applicable for rejecting the reference as not maintainable. The Tribunal was required to go into the merits of the controversy with reference to alleged violation of Section 25F of the Act.

Learned counsel for the State did not dispute the aforesaid legal proposition of law.

Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the paper book.

In Anoop Sharma''s case (supra), with reference to Uma Devi''s case (supra), Hon''ble the Supreme Court observed as under:

The judgment of the Constitution Bench in Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Uma Devi (supra) and other decisions in which this court considered the right of casual, daily wage, temporary and ad hoc employees to be regularised/continued in service or paid salary in the regular time scale, appears to have unduly influenced the High Court''s approach in dealing with the appellant''s challenge to the award of the Labour Court. In our view, none of those judgments has any bearing on the interpretation of Section 25F of the Act and employer''s obligation to comply with the conditions enumerated in that section.

In view of the aforesaid discussion, in my opinion, the approach of the Tribunal in rejecting the reference while dealing with only preliminary issue regarding maintainability, is erroneous. The same is set aside. The matter is remanded back to the Tribunal for considering the same on merits. The parties are directed to appear before the Tribunal on 17.8.2012. The petition stands disposed of.