CWP No. 1694 of 2010 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH CWP No. 1694 of 2010 Date of decision: 02.02.2010 Tarsem Raj s/o Sh. Babu Ram and another ...... PETITIONERS VERSUS The Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Gurdaspur and another ....... RESPONDENTS CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH Present: Mr. R.K.Arora, Advocate, for the petitioners. *** AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH, J. Prayer in the present writ petition is for setting aside of the Award dated 10.08.2009 (Annexure P-4) passed by the Labour Court, Gurdaspur, vide which the reference has been answered in favour of the workman-respondent holding him entitled to a lump-sum compensation of Rs. 35,000/- only in lieu of reinstatement and further directed that in case the amount awarded is not paid within four months', the workman would be entitled to interest @ 9% P.A. w.e.f. 10.12.2009 till recovery. CWP No. 1694 of 2010 2 Counsel for the petitioners submits that no evidence has been produced by the workman to prove that the workman was employee of the petitioners. He contends that the Labour Court has proceeded to decide the reference in favour of the workman without any evidence and, therefore, the findings, as recorded by the Labour Court, cannot be sustained. His further contention is that the compensation, which has been awarded to the petitioner, has been ordered to be paid by Niranjan Singh, the owner of the bus and his attorney-cum-manager Tarsem Raj, who were not parties to the reference and, therefore, the Award deserves to be set aside. I have heard the counsel for the petitioners and have gone through the records of the case as also the impugned Award. It is an admitted position that the workman was not issued any appointment letter or termination letter. Apart from the workman himself, who appeared as WW1, Naresh Kumar, who is resident of the village of the workman, had appeared as WW2 and corroborated the statement made by the workman. Tarsem Raj has appeared as RW1 claiming himself to be the attorney holder of Niranjan Singh. He has categorically stated, in his deposition before the Labour Court, that no records are being maintained by the Management. No records were produced by the petitioners before the Labour Court. The records which are required to be maintained statutorily were also not produced by them leading to the drawing of adverse inference by the Labour Court. On the basis of the statement made by the workman before the Labour Court while appearing as WW-1, which has been duly corroborated by the statement of WW-2 Naresh Kumar, who belongs to the village of the workman, it has been proved on record that the workman worked as an Adda Conductor with the CWP No. 1694 of 2010 3 management from 1990 to 2001. On the basis of the evidence led, finding has been recorded by the Labour Court that the workman has worked continuously with the petitioners from 08.10.1990 to 08.12.2001 as an Adda Conductor. The Labour Court, after taking into consideration the totallity of the facts and circumstances and drawing adverse inference for non- production of the records by the Management, came to a conclusion that the service of the workman was terminated in violation of the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act, which would entitle him to reinstatement in service. However, keeping in view the fact that two buses had already been sold away by the Management, the Labour Court has proceeded to grant the workman a lump-sum compensation of Rs. 35,000/- instead of ordering reinstatement of the workman. The findings and the directions given by the Labour Court are fully justified and do not call for any interference by this Court. As regards the contention of the counsel for the petitioners that a direction has been issued to Tarsem Raj-petitioner No. 1 and Niranjan Singh-petitioner No. 2 to make payment of the compensation amount without they being parties to the reference, suffice it to say that the direction issued by the Labour Court is covered by the provisions as contained under Section 18 of the Industrial Disputes Act and, therefore, is in accordance with law. Finding no merit in the present petition, the same stands dismissed. ( AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH ) JUDGE February 02, 2010 pj