IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.19088 of 2002 Date of decision: 05.11.2009 Jaswant Singh ....Petitioner versus Presiding Officer, Central Government Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court, Chandigarh and another. ...Respondents. CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Mr. R.S.Longia, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. Ashok Gupta, Advocate, for respondent No.2 ---- 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 Industrial Tribunal which is in challenge, is a rejection of the claim by a workman that he was entitled to be admitted to the pension fund and the seniority was to be treated as from October, 1979. The contention of the management was that although the workman had been employed in the year, 1974 as temporary guard, later a scheme of regularization was undertaken in October, 1979 but the workman could not be regularized since they received a communication from Army where he was previously in service that his date of birth was 01.07.1938 and not 01.07.1940 as given by him. The management, therefore, did not regularize him immediately and his services were Civil Writ Petition No.19088 of 2002 - 2 - terminated on 22.07.1981. This became a point of contention when after some negotiations, a settlement was arrived at and the workman was reinstated in service and later put on permanent appointment w.e.f. 23.10.1984, with liberty to resume enquiry into the alleged false declaration of his age. The contention of the management was, therefore, that only the date when he was confirmed ought to be taken for consideration in his claim to the seniority as well as the eligibility for the pension fund. This contention was accepted by the Industrial Tribunal and it proceeded therefore to reject the claim made by the workman. 2. The contention of the workman had been that although under the settlement the workman had been taken back, since the management reserved to itself its liberty to proceed with the enquiry relating to the alleged misconduct of giving false particulars of age, it did not proceed with enquiry but ultimately the enquiry yielded to a finding in favour of the workman and the management found that it could not be proved the misconduct. The contention of the workman was, therefore, that his regularization must be taken to be effective even from October, 1979, since it was denied to him only on the ground of contemplation of an enquiry against the workman. 3. If it were to be, therefore, concluded that the workman had been fully exonerated, the workman could not be denied the benefit of regularization undertaken by the management in the year, 1979 itself but which was denied to him only in view of contemplated charges against the workman. If there was no misconduct established, as a necessary consequence, the workman would also be entitled to be treated as Civil Writ Petition No.19088 of 2002 - 3 - regularized from October, 1979 itself and his seniority had to be fixed on such a basis. The admission into pension fund itself was not denied but the point of contention was only the manner of computation. By the finding that I have come to that the workman was entitled to regularization even in the year 1979, the management shall re-work the pension on the revised basis on treating him as having been regularized in the year 1979 and reckon the appropriate amount which is due to the workman. The award of the Industrial Tribunal is, under the circumstances, set aside and the workman shall be entitled to re-fixation of his pension. The arrears of pension shall be calculated and paid to the workman within 8 weeks from the date of this order, failing which, the amount that is found as arrears, shall bear interest @ 9% per annum. 4. The writ petition is, accordingly allowed. No costs. (K.KANNAN) 05 .11.2009 JUDGE sanjeev