THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE N.RAVI SHANKAR W.P.M.P.No.38964 of 2011 in WRIT PETITION No.1731 of 2000 ORDER: This petition is filed for reviewing the order dated 19.10.2011 passed by me in W.P.No.1731 of 2000 and for granting a relief which was refused and for deleting certain directions or observations which the petitioner says ought not to have been given or made. 2. The matter arose under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (for short Act). The questions raised in the writ petition were whether the first respondent’s department which is a Government department can be treated as an industry and if so whether the petitioner was terminated without complying with Section 25-F of the Act and further whether the delay of 12 years on the part of the petitioner in approaching the concerned industrial tribunal disentitles him to the relief of reinstatement and other reliefs claimed in the writ petition. All the above three questions have been answered in favour of the petitioner in the judgment given in the writ petition and the relief of reemployment of the petitioner who was held to be a workman was alone given. 3. Regarding the reliefs granted, the operative portion of the judgment in the writ petition reads as follows. “Accordingly for the aforesaid reasons it is held that the oral termination of the petitioner from employment by the Executive Engineer from the service is violative of Section 25-F of the Act as he was not paid any compensation and it is accordingly set aside. This writ petition is therefore allowed and the impugned award is set aside. The petitioner is ordered to be employed as an NMR without back wages. It shall however be open for the first respondent to remove the petitioner from employment if that is necessary in view of exigencies of work by paying him compensation under the Act taking into account the wages paid to him as on 31.07.1982. No costs.” 4. The plea of the petitioner now is that refusal of the relief of back wages after reinstatement and further the liberty given to the first respondent in the relief portion to terminate the services of the petitioner if that is necessary by paying him compensation with reference to the wages paid to him as on 31.07.1982 (i.e. the date of his termination) are against law. Sri V.Sudhakar Reddy, the learned counsel for the petitioner, says that the judgment should be reviewed by granting the relief of full back wages at least from the date of reference of the industrial dispute to the tribunal while deleting the above directions or observations. His argument is that the above directions or observations which weigh in favour of the first respondent ought not to be granted as per law and therefore the judgment should be reviewed. 5. At the time of arguments, Sri Sudhakar Reddy was specifically asked as to how the above grounds or pleas of the petitioner constitute grounds for review and whether or not the pleas of the petitioner pertain to merits of the matter which cannot be gone into a review petition. He argued that the refusal of the relief of back wages and the above directions constitute errors of law apparent on the face of record and can be reviewed by this court. The learned Government Pleader however argued that the above pleas of the petitioner cannot be grounds for review. 6. In support of the claim of petitioner for back wages, Sri Sudhakar Reddy relied upon the decisions given in Arrack Bottling Unit, Wyra vs. Hon.Labour Court-cum-Industrial Tribunal[1], Devinder Singh vs. Municipal Council, Sanaur[2], Harjinder Singh vs. Punjab State Warehousing Corpn.[3], Mohan Lal vs. The Management of M/s.Bharat Electronics Ltd.[4] and Surendra Kumar Verma vs. The Central Government Industrial Tribunal- cum-Labour Court, New Delhi[5]. 7. In support of his contention the learned Government pleader relied upon the decisions given in BSNL vs. Man Singh[6], Telegraph Deptt vs. Santosh Kumar Seal[7], Jagbir Singh vs. Haryana State Agriculture Mktg. Board[8], Ghaziabad Development Authority vs. Ashok Kumar[9], State of H.P. vs. Suresh Kumar Verma[10] and an order of this Court dated 22.03.2012 passed in W.P.No.21235 of 2002 (Shaik Ansari vs. Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court, Warangal and others). He went on to argue that going by the above decisions cited by him this court ought not to have granted the relief of reinstatement as the petitioner was admittedly a daily wage earner. 8. It may be noted that in Arrack Bottling Unit case (1 supra) a Division Bench of this Court held that after reinstatement, grant of back wages must follow and even compensation cannot be adequate relief. This Division Bench judgment was not cited before this court. The other decisions relied upon by the petitioner’s counsel say that back wages can be granted either in part or in full. 9. It may however be noted that in BSNL case (6 supra) (judgment dated 14.10.2011) relied upon by the learned Government pleader it has been specifically held by the Supreme Court that in the case of a daily wage earner even though an order of retrenchment was in violation of Section 25-F of the Act, reinstatement should not be ordered and only compensation can be proper relief. This view has also been the view of the Supreme Court in the other cases cited by him. Thus going by these decisions it is clear that grant of reinstatement itself by this court in the present case can be said to be contrary to law laid down by the Supreme Court. None of the above decisions also were brought to my notice at the time of disposal of this writ petition. It may however be noted that the above decisions cannot be a ground now in this petition filed by the writ petitioner to review about the relief of reinstatement granted. 10. I have mentioned the above decisions only to show how both sides contested the matter by going into the merits in it in this review petition. 11. Under Section 11-A of the Act, the tribunal or the labour court in an industrial dispute relating to discharge or dismissal of a workman is competent when it finds that such discharge or dismissal was not justified to set aside such order of discharge or dismissal and direct reinstatement of the workman on such terms and conditions if any as it thinks fit or give such other relief to the workman including the award of any lesser punishment in lieu of discharge or dismissal as the circumstances of the case may require. As no decisions were cited regarding back wages in the hearing of the writ petition, it was considered that the grant of relief of back wages need not automatically follow the reinstatement and in that view of the matter, the back wages were refused having regard to all the circumstances of the case. 12. It may then be noted that consideration of the legal position relating to back wages or even the grant of relief of reinstatement in view of the decisions cited by both sides would again amount to going into the merits of the matter which can be again agitated in appeal only and the denial of relief of back wages cannot be treated as an error apparent on the face of the record. In Aribam Tuleshwar Sharma vs. Aribam Pishak Sharma[11] the Supreme Court in para-3 held as follows. “… … … It is true as observed by this Court in Shivdeo Singh v. State of Punjab (AIR 1963 SC 1909) there is nothing in Article 226 of the Constitution to preclude a High Court from exercising the power of review which inheres in every Court of plenary jurisdiction to prevent miscarriage of justice or to correct grave and palpable errors committed by it. But, there are definitive limits to the exercise of the power of review. The power of review may be exercised on the discovery of new and important matter or evidence which, after the exercise of due diligence was not within the knowledge of the person seeking the review or could not be produced by him at the time when the order was made; it may be exercised where some mistake or error apparent on the face of the record is found; it may also be exercised on any analogous ground. But, it may not be exercised on the ground that the decision was erroneous on merits. That would be the province of a Court of Appeal. A power of review is not to be confused with appellate power which may enable an Appellate Court to correct all manner of errors committed by the Subordinate Court.” 13. My judgment which is sought to be reviewed may be right or wrong in refusing back wages. In the present case on hand no new material or facts are relied upon to show that the petitioner is entitled to back wages. The claim for back wages was considered and rejected on merits in the writ petition. Again going into the said question would only amount to going into the merits of the matter which is not permissible in view of the above decision of the Hon’ble Supreme Court. That question can only be agitated only in an appeal or other remedy against the judgment in the writ petition. Accordingly, the request for back wages in this review petition is rejected. 14. I must mention here that Sri Sudhakar Reddy pointed out that at the time of pronouncement of judgment in this writ petition he made a mention about refusal of back wages and other reliefs mentioned by him and this court told him to file a review petition regarding whatever he wanted to say in the matter. May be this court might have told him to file a review petition, but it does not mean that this court would allow the review petition regarding back wages and other reliefs if it is not permissible under law. Thus for the aforesaid reasons review regarding back wages cannot be entertained. 15. That takes me to the observation made in the judgment that it shall be open for the first respondent to remove the petitioner from employment if that is necessary in view of the exigencies of work by paying him compensation under the Act. The plea of Sri Sudhakar Reddy is that because of this observation, the first respondent did not so far reinstate the petitioner and therefore that observation should be deleted. He however agreed that it is always open for the first respondent to terminate the services of the petitioner in accordance with the provisions of Section 25-F of the Act and that goes without saying and therefore the above observation was not necessary. If that is so, it can be said that the above observation can only be understood as clarificatory in nature regarding legal position and I am unable to agree with his contention regarding the deletion of the above observation. If the first respondent did not comply with the judgment of this court regarding reinstatement, it is always open for the petitioner to take appropriate steps available to him under law for its implementation. Accordingly, the second request is also rejected. 16. Regarding the further observation of this Court that the first respondent can remove the petitioner from service if that is warranted by paying him compensation with reference to wages paid to him as on 31.07.1982, I am of the opinion that this part of observation relating to the date to be taken into account for calculating compensation should be deleted. It should be noted that once the petitioner is reinstated into service and if he is terminated thereafter for want of work or some such like reason or otherwise when his services are not considered necessary, it follows that he will be entitled to compensation or other amounts as per law with reference to the wages paid to him as on the date of his termination after reinstatement. In my view this can be a ground for review to the above extent. Thus this third request for review is accepted. 17. Accordingly, in the relief portion of the judgment which is already extracted supra, the words “taking into account the wages paid to him as on 31.07.1982” shall be deleted and the rest of the relief portion shall stand. The other reliefs claimed are rejected and this review petition is accordingly partly allowed only as indicated above. The judgment in the writ petition is ordered to be amended in the relief portion as ordered above. No costs. _______________________ N. RAVI SHANKAR, J 13th July, 2012 TJMR/CVRK [1] 2012 (1) ALD 220 (DB) [2] (2011) 6 Supreme Court Cases 584 [3] (2010) 3 Supreme Court Cases 192 [4] AIR 1981 Supreme Court 1253 (1) [5] AIR 1981 Supreme Court 422 [6] (2012) 1 Supreme Court Cases 558 [7] (2010) 6 Supreme Court Cases 773 [8] (2009) 15 Supreme Court Cases 327 [9] (2008) 4 Supreme Court Cases 261 [10] (1996) 7 Supreme Court Cases 562 [11] AIR 1979 SC 1047 (1)