IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.7360 of 2002 Date of decision:11.11.2009 State of Haryana ....Petitioner versus Satbir Singh and another ...Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Mr. D.S.Nalwa, Additional Advocate General, for the petitioner. Mr. Naveen Daryal, Advocate, for respondent No1. ---- 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 of the Labour Court contains a direction for reinstatement with continuity of service and back wages. The workman had been dismissed from service after constituting departmental enquiry into his alleged misconduct of embezzlement, while working as a Conductor in Haryana Roadways. The Labour Court found through an interim order that the enquiry had not been fair and proper, but the management did not avail to itself an opportunity to lead evidence to prove the misconduct. The Labour Court, under the circumstances, still decided to go into the report of the Enquiry Officer, which was not even necessary to hold that the alleged witnesses to the incident had not been examined and that the Enquiry Officer's findings were not tenable. The Civil Writ Petition No.7360 of 2002 - 2 - Labour Court need not have undertaken such an exercise. Indeed it was improper to still examine the findings of the Enquiry Officer, when he had earlier come to a decision that the enquiry had not been fair and proper. In an improper enquiry or an unfair procedure, there cannot be a result which the law could approve of. The direction, under the circumstances, for reinstatement with continuity of service, was perfectly justified. 2. The learned counsel appearing for the State would still contend that the direction for full back wages was unjustified when there was no statement made by the workman that he had not been gainfully employed during the relevant period. The burden of proof was placed on the management to establish that the workman had not been gainfully employed in the award of the Labour Court. This approach, as pointed out by the learned counsel, is clearly wrong. The Hon'ble Supreme Court has even noticed that a paradigm shift has come about over a period of years that expects that only the workman shall prove that he was not gainfully employed in order to claim full back wages. It is on a lofty principle of 'no work, no wage' and the mere fact that the termination was bad, did not always secure to the workman to claim full back wages. It is brought out on record that subsequent to the award, the workman had also been reinstated in service and he had retired on 30th June, 2009. There had been stay for payment of 50% back wages. The direction for payment of full back wages as found in the Labour Court award is set aside for the period from the date of termination of service namely on 5th June, 1996, till the date of the award. It shall stand reduced to 50% back Civil Writ Petition No.7360 of 2002 - 3 - wages. However, the workman shall be entitled to full back wages only from the date of the award till he was superannuated from his service. Any amount which has been made already to the workman shall be adjusted in the final reckoning. The award of the Labour Court shall suffer a modification only as regards back wages from the original order of termination to the date of the award. In all other respects, the award of the Labour Court is set aside. Consequently, the workman shall be entitled to reinstatement, continuity of service and full wages from the date of award till date of superannuation. The workman shall be entitled to all retiral benefits also in accordance with law. 3. The writ petition is accordingly dismissed with the modification as above. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 11.11.2009 sanjeev