IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.18903 of 2001 Date of decision:07.10.2009 Shiv Dayal ...Petitioner Versus Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Ambala and others ...Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN Present: Mr. Jaspal Singh Maanipur, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. R.C.Kapoor, Advocate, for respondents 2 to 4. ---- 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 workman, who had sought for a reference on the ground that he was illegally terminated from service, suffered a rejection of the reference on the ground that he had not established that he was a workman under the management. His contention was that he was employed from 1987 till he was illegally terminated on 10.11.1993. The contention of the management was that it was a Corporation established under an Act and they were governed by their own recruitment rules. It was the contention of the management that advertisements were issued and salaries were paid only through cheques. It was also their contention that the petitioner had been employed by them in the year 1987-1988, but from the year 1989 onwards, he had ceased to be under their employment. They sought to adduce evidence to the effect that there was one Om Parkash, who was a transporter and the workman had been employed only by Om Parkash. Civil Writ Petition No.18903 of 2001 - 2 - 2. Before the Labour Court, the workman had sought to prove the employment status under the management by placing reliance on gate passes that were issued which showed that he had signed in the gate passes, representing the management, even after the year 1988, when according to the management, he was not under their employment. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner relied on the evidence of Om Parkash, who had come to support the evidence of the management that the workman was employed only by him and not by the management. Om Parkash had admitted in his evidence that either the driver or the owner of the vehicle would sign in the gate passes as representing the transporter and there will be also a signature on behalf of the Company. The learned counsel referred to exhibits W-1 to W-58 that contained the signatures of the workman as a person representing the Company as a “dispatch incharge of the Company”. 3. The Labour Court accepted the evidence of the witnesses MW-1 and MW-2 and held that there was no master and servant relationship between the employee and the management and found that he was employed as a workman under the contractor. The learned counsel appearing for the workman submitted that admittedly there was no proof of any registration of a contract and that further, if the evidence was that Om Parkash was that he was only a transporter, then it meant that he was not a contractor, who could have lawfully employed the workman. 4. The learned appearing for the respondent would submit that it was not permissible for the Corporation to employ workman without Civil Writ Petition No.18903 of 2001 - 3 - reference to recruitment rules and there could not have been mere payments by cash, as referred to by the petitioner. While exercising jurisdiction under Article 226, it shall not be normally permissible to interfere with the findings rendered on facts unless there is a perverse rendering of facts and in this case, when the Labour Court had found that the workman had been employed only by the witness Om Parkash, examined on the side of the management. I still feel constrained to take a different view only by the fact that there was an admission by the management-witnesses that at the gate pass, the signatures representing the Company, shall also be made and that had been signed only by the workman. The effect of the signatures at the gate pass had not been, in my view, properly considered by the Labour Court and it had also failed to consider the fact that Om Parkash could not have been merely a Contractor unless it was brought on record such a contract was also registered in the manner required by law. 5. It is admittedly a case where the workman had continuously been in employment from the year 1987 till he was terminated on 10.11.1993 and the mandate of Section 25-F had not been followed. I, therefore, set aside the finding of the Labour Court that the workman was not a workman under the management and that the workman was not entitled to any relief before the Labour Court. Even while so holding the issue was as to whether the workman shall be entitled to the relief of reinstatement will have to be seen in the context of nature of engagement and the type of entry into service. It has been the specific contention of the management that there are relevant recruitment rules governing Civil Writ Petition No.18903 of 2001 - 4 - the engagement on all types of labour. Although the recruitment rules themselves had not been filed in Court, it was elicited through management-witness MW-2 that there were relevant rules and that all the appointments were done only through advertisements and that the salaries were always paid only through cheques. It is again an admitted case that the management was a Corporation established under statute and under such circumstances, I am of the view that the relief of reinstatement shall not be appropriate. The appropriate relief, in my view, would, therefore, be only to afford to the workman compensation of Rs.75,000/- which has to be paid to the workman within 8 weeks from the date of receipt of the copy of the order, failing which it shall bear interest at 9% per annum. The award of the Labour Court is, under the circumstances, set aside and modified to provide for compensation as referred to above. 6. The writ petition is disposed of in the above terms. No costs. (K.KANNAN) 07.10.2009 JUDGE sanjeev