IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) MONDAY, THE TWENTY FOURTH DAY OF NOVEMBER TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION NO:13284 of 1996 Between: K.Ramulu S/o.Gavaraiah R/o. H.No.1-7-192 , Bakaram , Hyderabad. ..... PETITIONER AND 1 The Labour Court , Hyderabad -I Rep by its Presiding Officer Chandravihar Building , II Floor M.J. Road , Hyderabad. 2 The Managing director A.P.Industrial Infrastructure Corpn Ltd Basheerbagh , Hyderabad. .....RESPONDENTS Counsel for the Petitioner:NONE APPEARED Counsel for the Respondents:NONE APPEARED The Court made the following : ORDER: This writ petition is filed for a writ of certiorari to quash award, dated 26.12.1995 passed in I.D.No.447 of 1993. At the hearing, no one appeared for the petitioner and the respondents. I have carefully perused the award passed by the Labour Court - respondent No.1. The petitioner felt aggrieved by the above-mentioned award passed by respondent No.1 to the extent he was denied the reinstatement. In it’s award, respondent No.1 gave a finding that the petitioner was engaged on daily wage basis from June, 1982 to September, 1984 and that respondent No.2 failed to follow the mandatory provisions of Section 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (for short ‘the Act’). Having so held, very surprisingly, respondent No.1 upheld the legality and validity of the termination of the petitioner. In my considered view, this finding of respondent No.1 is contrary to the mandatory provisions of Section 25-F of the Act, which ordains that no workman employed in any industry, who has been in continuous service for not less than one year, shall be retrenched by the employer until the workman has been given one month’s notice in writing indicating the reasons for retrenchment and the period of notice has expired or the workmen has been paid in lieu of such notice, wages for the period of such notice, and has been paid the retrenchment compensation, which shall be equivalent to fifteen days’ average pay for every completed year of continuous service or any part thereof in excess of six months. Therefore, the concept of oral notice is alien to the provisions of the Act. Respondent No.1 has thus, committed a patent error in terming the alleged oral termination of the petitioner as legal and valid. On that erroneous premise, the petitioner, who was denied reinstatement, was merely granted the relief of payment of retrenchment compensation. This approach of respondent No.1 is wholly perverse to say the least. When once the retrenchment is held to be in violation of Section 25-F of the Act, respondent No.1 has no option other than holding the same as illegal and invalid. The next question is, what is the appropriate relief that the petitioner is entitled to be given. The Supreme Court, time and again, held that even in cases where the retrenchment is held to be illegal, reinstatement of the workman is not automatic. I n Sher Bahadur v. Union of India[1], the Supreme Court awarded payment of two years’ wages having taken into consideration the fact that the workman had put in two years’ service prior to his retrenchment. In Haryana Urban Development Authority v. Om Pal [2], the Supreme Court quantified the wages at Rs.25,000/-. Following the said judgments, I am of the view that interests of justice would be met, if respondent No.2 is directed to pay the wages equivalent to two years’ in lieu of reinstatement, having regard to the fact that the petitioner worked from June, 1982 to September, 1984 before his services were terminated. The writ petition is, therefore, allowed and respondent No.2 shall pay wages equivalent to two years’ by calculating the last drawn wage of the petitioner at the time of his termination. C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J 24th NOVEMBER, 2008. kvni [1] 2002(7) SCC 142 [2] 2007(3) Supreme 497