IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.12305 of 2001 Date of decision:06.10.2009 District Food and Supplies Officer, Batala and another. ...Petitioners Versus Piara Masih and another ...Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Ms. Monica Chhibbar Sharma, Deputy Advocate General, Punjab. Mr. Raj Kaushik, Advocate, for respondent No.1 ---- 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? 2. To be referred to the reporters or not ? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest ? ---- K.Kannan, J. (Oral) 1. The award under challenge is a direction for reinstatement with back wages to the workman who was alleged to have been terminated from service in May, 1990 without following the statutory mandate under Section 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act. The contention on behalf of the District Food and Supplies Department was that there was three categories of Chowkidars namely of regular employees, who had been appointed in sanctioned posts, temporary Chowkidars, who had been recruited through Employment Exchange but on the same scales of pay as regular employees and daily wage Civil Writ Petition No.12305 of 2001 - 2 - Chowkidars, who had been engaged depending upon the need of the department during the procurement season to do the work at the time when stock had to be delivered to the central pool. The last category of daily wagers were required to be employed only when the work existed and whenever the stock had been moved out to the central pool and when they were rendered surplus their service were disengaged. 2. On a contention by the management that the reference itself had been grossly delayed by 9 years, it was pleaded on behalf of the workman that the delay would only result in loss of back wages and a consideration of wages from the date of reference and would not defeat the right of the workman itself to seek for an adjudication on a dispute raised by him. The Labour Court accepted the contention and proceeded to examine the issue on merits and held that the workman having been employed for more than 240 days of continuous service could not have been terminated without following the statutory mandate under Section 25-F and therefore granted to him reinstatement with continuity of service and back wages. 3. The learned counsel appearing for the State would contend that even if the termination was found to be not in compliance of Section 25-F, the workman could not have been reinstated having regard to the nature of engagement and the particular category to which he belonged. The Court found that the contention of the management that he had been working only upto February, 1986, had not been proved by production of the relevant records especially when the workman had specifically claimed that he had been terminated only in May, 1990. In relation to a Civil Writ Petition No.12305 of 2001 - 3 - daily rated workman in Department of Food and Supplies that a right of reinstatement will not avail merely because of violation of Section 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act. The Court is at all times bound to consider the nature of engagement and the availability of work before directing reinstatement. Further, the workman who had ceased work for over 9 years and approaching the Labour Court after a long delay without explaining the delay cannot demand reinstatement. In this case, having regard to the fact that the workman had been in an employment for 7 years and more, the appropriate compensation, in my view, for the number of years of service that he put in, would be Rs.75,000/-, which amount shall be paid to the workman within a period of six weeks from the date of the receipt of the copy of the order, failing which, the amount shall bear interest at 9% per annum. 4. The award of the Labour Court is, under the circumstances, modified setting aside the direction for reinstatement, continuity of service and back wages and in lieu thereof, the compensation as set out above shall be granted. 5. The writ petition is disposed of in the above terms. (K.KANNAN) 06.10.2009 JUDGE sanjeev