ivil Appeal No 1899 of 1989
From the Judgment and Order dated 20287 of the Central Administrative Tribunal Principal Bench New Delhi in TA No T 322 85 CW 29377
Shankar Vaidyalingam and Ms Seita Vaidyalingam for the Appellant
B Dutta Govind Das Mrs Sushma Suri and Ms Indra Sawhney for the Respondents
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by KULDIP SINGH J
The question for our consideration in this appeal is whether the appellant is governed by Funda mental Rule 56ci and as such entitled to superannuation at the age of 60 years
Fundamental Rule 56ci is reproduced as under c A ministerial Government servant who entered Government service on or before the 31st March 1958 and held on that date i a lien or a suspended lien on a permanent post or  shall retire from service on the afternoon of the 1st day of the month in which he attains the age of sixty years
 The appellant joined service as paid apprentice in the Collectorate of Etawah Government of Uttar Pradesh on 1st July 1937
On the same day he was asked to officiate in the post of Arranger
He was sent back to the post of paid apprentice on 24th December 1937 but was again appointed as Arranger in officiating capacity on 3rd of January 1938
While holding the post of paid apprentice he had been ap pointed in various posts on officiating basis
He was final ly promoted and appointed to a permanent post of Copyist in a substantive capacity on 1st of August 1941
He came to the Government of India on deputa 412 tion in March 1943 and thereafter retired from service on attaining the age of 58 years in February 1976
The appellant claimed that having entered Government service on permanent basis before 31st March 1938 he was entitled to continue in service till the age of 60 years under Fundamental Rule 56 ci and his retirement on attaining the age of 58 years was illegal
The Central Administrative Tribunal Principal Bench New Delhi dis missed the application of the appellant holding that the appellant was only an apprentice under training prior to 1st of August 1941 and as such was not holding any employment under the State on permanent basis
According to the Tribu nal the appellant was appointed to the Government service on permanent basis to the post of Copyist on 1st of August 1941 and as such he did not come within the purview of Fundamental Rule 56ci
We have examined the admitted entries in the service book of the appellant which are on the record
These entries show that the appellant joined service as paid apprentice on substantive permanent basis on 1st of July 1937
It is correct that from 1st of July 1937 upto 1st of August 1941 he has been shown in the service book to be appointed in officiating capacity to various posts but the fact remains that his basic appointment as paid apprentice was permanent
The finding of the Tribunal that the appellant was made permanent for the first time as Copyist on 1st August 1941 cannot be accepted in the face of clear entries in the service book showing that he joined as paid apprentice on permanent basis on 1st of July 1937
Joining as paid ap prentice on permanent basis cannot be anything else but entering Government service on permanent basis and since the entry was before 31st March 1938 Fundamental Rule 56ci is attracted and the appellant is entitled to remain in Government service till the age of 60 years
In the reply affidavit on behalf of the respondents in the court below it is stated as under The petitioner joined Government Service under the provincial Government of Uttar Pradesh on 17 1937 against a post of paid apprentice
It appears there were a few permanent posts of paid apprentice under the State Government
Petitioner was appointed against one of them in Collectorate Etawah
 413 The respondents repeated their stand in the counter filed by them in this Court in the following terms It is submitted that the petitioner joined Govern ment service under the Provincial Government of Uttar Pra desh on 171937 against a post of Paid Apprentice
It appear that there were a few permanent posts of paid appren tice under the State Government
The petitioner was appoint ed against one of them in the Collectorate Etawah
 We are therefore of the view that the Tribunal erred in denying the benefit of Fundamental Rule 56 ci to the appellant
We allow the appeal with costs and set aside the judgment of the Central Administrative Tribunal under appeal and we hold that the appellant was entitled to continue in Government service till he attained the age of 60 years
The appellant has already completed 60 years and as such he be paid two years emoluments with all consequential benefits including any enhancement in the fixation of pension and other post retirement benefits
We quantify the costs as Rs3000
GN Appeal allowed


Summary:
This batch of eighteen appeals by special leave involves a common question of law regarding the scope and ambit of the word retrenchment  as defined in Section 2oo of the Industrial Dispute Act 1947
112 One of the appeals is by the workmen against the order of the High Court affirming the award of the Labour Court refusing to interfere with the order of termination of their services by the employer for their trade union activities while the rest are by the employers managements against the orders of High CourtsIndustrial Tribunal Labour Court setting aside the orders of termination of the services of the illegal for non compliance of the provisions of Section 25F of the Act
While the employers  contention is that the word re trenchment as defined in Section 2oo of the Act means termination of service of a workman only by way of surplus labour for any reason whatsoever the workmen contend that retrenchment means termination of the service of a workman for any reason whatsoever other than those expressly ex cluded by the definition in Section 2oo of the Act
Disposing of the appeals this Court HELD 1 Definition of retrenchment  in Section 2oo means termination by the employer of the service of a work man for any reason whatsoever otherwise than as a punish ment inflicted by way of disciplinary action and those expressly excluded by the definition
This is the wider literal interpretation as distinguished from the narrow natural and contextual interpretation of the word to mean termination by the employer of the service of a workman as surplus labour for any reason whatsoever
156C 131B BN Mutto vs TK Nandi   Jugal Ki shore Saraf vs Raw Cotton Co Ltd   Sussex Peerage Case 1844 II CI  Fin 858 ER 1034 HL Thompson vs Goold  Co  Ealsing LBC vs Race Relations Board  Whiteley vs Chappell 1868 LR 4 Prince Ernest of Hanover vs Attorney General and Muir vs Keay 44 MJMC 143 referred to
2 Difficulty was created by defining retrenchment  to mean something wider than what it naturally and ordinarily meant
Such a definition created complexity as the draftsman himself in drafting the other sections using the definition may slip into the ordinary meaning instead of the defined meaning
However a judge facing such a problem of interpre tation cannot simply fold his hands and blame the draftsman
149A B F 113 3 The definition has used the word means 
When a statute says that a word or phrase shall mean  not merely that it shall include  certain things or acts the defini tion is a hard and fast definition and no other meaning can be assigned to the expression than is put down in defini tion 150F G Queen vs Commissioners under the Boiler Explosions Act 1882 1891 I QBD 703 and Gough vs Gough LT II relied on
4 There are apparent incongruities when the definition Clause Section 2oo is considered in the context of the main provisions viz Sections 25F 25G and 25H but there is room for harmonious construction
The definitions contained in Section 2 are subject to there being anything repugnant in the subject or context
152C D Vishwamitra Press vs Workers   Presidency Jute Mills Co Ltd vs Presidency Juite Mills Co Employees Union 1952 I LLJ 796 LAT Cal Iron  Steel Mazdoor Union Kanpur vs JK Iron and Steel Co Ltd  Halar Salt and Chemical Works Jamnagar vs Workmen  Prakriti Bhushan Gupta vs Chief Mining Engineer Railway Board  Sudarshan Banerjee vs Mcleod and C Ltd  Srinivasa Enterprises vs Union of India   Reserve Bank of India vs Peerless Central Finance and Investment Co Ltd 1987 2 SCR I referred to
5 The express exclusion of volitional element in cl
a and b of Section 2oo namely voluntary retirement and retirement on superannuation age implies that those would otherwise have been included
If such cases were to be included termination on abandonment of service on efflux of time and on failure to qualify though only consequential or resultant would be included as those have not been ex cluded
Then there appears to be a gap between the first part and the exclusion part
When such a gap is disclosed the remedy lies in an amending Act
The Court has to inter pret a statute and apply it to the facts
150C E Duport Steels vs Sirs  referred to
6 Construing retrenchment in its wider sense the rights of the employer under the standing orders and under contracts of employment may have been affected by Sections 200 and 25F and other relevant sections
Secondly it may be said that the rights as such are not affected or taken away but only additional social obligation has been 114 placed on the employer so as to give retrenchment benefit to affected
workmen perhaps for tiding over immediate finan cial distress
Seen from this angle there is implicit a social policy
So goes the maxim Stat Pro ratione voluntes populi the will of the people stands in place of a reason
153E G 7 In Sundara Money and subsequent cases the Supreme Court has adopted wider liberal meaning rejecting the narrow natural and contextual meaning
The question of subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court being per incuriam on grounds of failure to apply the earlier law laid down by the Consti tution Bench in Hariprasad Shukla case could arise only if ratio in Sunclara Money and subsequent decisions was in conflict with the ratio in Hariprasad and Anakapalli
Hari prasad case is not an authority for the proposition that Section 2oo only covers cases of discharge of surplus labour and staff
Sundara Money and subsequent decisions in the line could not be held to be per incuriam in as much as in Hindustan Steel and Santosh Gupta cases the Division Benches of the Supreme Court had referred to Hariprasad case and rightly held that its ratio did not extend beyond the case of termination on the ground of closure and as such it would not be correct to say that subsequent decision overlooked a binding precedent
In a fast developing branch of Industrial and Labour Law it may not be always of partic ular importance to rigidly stick to a precedent and a prece dent may need to be departed from if the basis of legisla tion changes
143B C 145E L Robert D Souza vs Executive Engineer Southern Rail way and Anr  Rajasthan State Electricity Board vs Labour Court  Goodlas Nerolac Paints vs Chief Commissioner Delhi and The Managing Director National Garages vs J Gonsalves  overruled
Delhi Cloth and General Mills Ltd vs Shambhu Nath Mukherjee and Ors
   Hindustan Steel Ltd vs The Presiding Officer Labour Court   Santosh Gupta vs State Bank of Patiala   Gammon India Ltd vs Niranjan Das  and Reg vs Home Secretary Ex P Khawaja 1984 AC 74 HL relied on
Pipraich Sugar Mills Ltd vs Pipraich Sugar Mills Maz door Union  Sub Nomine Barsi Light Railway Co vs KN Joglekar  Hariprasad Shivshankar Shukla vs AD Divikar 1957 SCR 121 Anaka palla Co operative Agricultural 115 and Industrial Society Ltd vs Workmen
1963 Supp 1 SCR 730 and Workmen of Subong Tea Estate vs The Outgoing Manage ment of Subong Tea Estate and Anr   dis tinguished
Employees vs India Reconstitution Corporation Ltd  Indian Hume Pipe Co Ltd vs Workmen  Benett Coleman and Company Ltd vs Employees  Mahan Lal vs Bharat Electronic Ltd  and Surendra Kumar Verma vs Central Govern ment Industrial Tribunal cum Labour Court New Delhi   referred to
8 Article 141 embodies a rule of law the doctrine of precedents on which our judicial system is based
136H 9 Per Incuriam means through inadvertance
A decision can be said generally to be given per incuriam when the Supreme Court has acted in ignorance of its own previous decision or when a High Court has acted in ignorance of a decision of the Supreme Court
The problem of judgment per incuriam when actually arises should present no difficulty as the Supreme Court can lay down the law afresh if two or more of its earlier judgments cannot stand together
Article 141 which embodies as a rule of law the doctrine of prece dents was enacted to make the law declared by the Supreme Court itself
136G 138G 137F Re Dawson s Settlement Lloyds Bank Ltd vs Dawson and Bengal Immunity Company Ltd vs State of Bihar  relied upon 10 The doctrine of ratio decidendi has also to be interpreted in the same line
To consider the ratio deciden di Court has to ascertain the principle on which the case was decided
The ratio decidendi of a decision may be nar rowed or widened by the judges before whom it is cited as a precedent
139G H State of Orissa vs Sudhansu Shikhar Misra   FA  AB Ltd vs Lupton Inspector of taxes  Osborne vs Rowlett
and Quinn vs Leathem   relied on Griffiths vs JP Harrison Watford Ltd  Finsbury Securities Ltd vs Inland Revenue Commissioners  referred to 116