IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.19162 of 2002 Date of decision:09.10.2009 Nishan Chand and another ...Petitioners Versus X.E.N. Gurdaspur Division, UBDC, Gurdaspur ...Respondents and others. Present: Mr. Ramesh Kumar, Advocate, for the petitioners. Ms. Monica Chhibbar Sharma, Deputy Advocate General, Punjab. ---- CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- 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 that is in challenge before this Court is a rejection of a reference sought at the instance of two workmen, who claimed to have worked between specific dates. As for the Ist petitioner, It is from 08.03.1995 to 30.11.1995 and as for the petitioner No.2, from 24.04.1995 to 31.05.1996. The plea taken in defence was that the workmen had never worked with the respondent. A rejoinder had been filed by the workman setting out even details of names and the places where the respective workmen were working. They had also stated in the rejoinder that the service record and the payment records lying with the respondent, the Court could direct the production at appropriate Civil Writ Petition No.19162 of 2002 - 2 - proceeding. Probably the workman was under the impression that it is always the Court's duty to summon the documents required to be produced on his part. Unfortunately even before me, the same line of argument is made. I do not want the workmen to suffer by what is evidently the ignorance of the workmen for not taking steps to summon the production of records, in spite of specific averments contained in the rejoinder about the places of work and the persons under whom they were working. 2. The Labour Court found that the workmen had not taken steps to summon the records to prove their employment. The counsel for the workmen submits before me that he will take appropriate steps if an opportunity is given to him to summon the records and if in spite of such summons, the relevant records would not be produced, it shall enable the Court to draw an inference as the law would allow. I am of the view that there has been a miscarriage of justice by the fact that the best of evidence which is possible has not been tendered by the Court. A hyper- technical approach shall subvert an effort to get at the truth whether the workman had been employed by the respondent or not. The award of the Labour Court is, under the circumstances, set aside and i remit the matter to the Labour Court, when the Labour Court shall consider any application moved at the instance of the workmen for summoning the relevant records. The Labour Court shall then render an adjudication on the basis of evidence tendered by both parties. Having regard to the fact that the reference is of more than a decade old, it is requested that the Labour Court considers the case as expeditiously as possible preferably Civil Writ Petition No.19162 of 2002 - 3 - within a period of 6 weeks from this date. 3. The writ petition is accordingly disposed of. Parties are directed to appear before the Labour Court on 10.12.2009. (K.KANNAN) 09.10.2009 JUDGE sanjeev