IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.3362 of 1994 Date of decision:16.03.2010 Raj Pal and others ....Petitioners versus The State of Haryana and others ....Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Mr. R.K. Malik, Senior Advocate, with Mr. Surya Partap Singh, Advocate, for the petitioners. Mr. Ravi Dutt Sharma, Deputy Advocate General, Haryana. Mr. Jagdish Manchanda, Advocate, for respondent No.3-Municipal Committee. ---- 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 petitioners, who are all Clerks or Peons at the Octroi office, complaining of discrimination in the matter of not extending the benefit of holidays such as, Saturday, Sunday or national holidays or local holidays declared by the Government when they had been made to work without any extra remuneration, save for Rs.500/- granted to them for the whole year, while other employees of the Municipal Committee, who were on a common cadre, were allowed the benefit of all the holidays. This matter has come about for consideration before the Civil Writ Petition No.3362 of 1994 - 2 - Hon'ble Supreme Court in Municipal Employees Union (Regd.), Sirhind and others Versus State of Punjab and others-(2000) 9 Supreme Court Cases 432, when the Hon'ble Supreme Court directed that the question of compensating them for working on holidays would depend on whether the service conditions were discriminatory or if there were no bye-laws requiring the employees to work for all days in a week. The Court ruled that they would be entitled to extra wages for each of the working Saturday if they were shown to have discharged their duties. Finding that the issues could not all be resolved without evidence, the parties had been directed to be relegated to the remedy under Section 33- C(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act. 2. This Court in Labh Singh and others Versus The State of Punjab and others in Civil Writ Petition No.6615 of 1993, dated 17.02.2010 followed the direction of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Municipal Employees Union (Regd.) Sirhind (supra) and directed that the Municipal Committee would calculate the amounts payable to the workmen for a period of 3 years prior to the filing of the writ petition, if discrimination had been shown and if for any reason, the authorities did not find favour with the claims of the workmen, the workmen would be at liberty to approach the appropriate forum for recovery of the benefits which they were claiming under Section 33-C(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act. 3. The same directions are reiterated in this writ petition as well, that the respondents shall consider the claim of the petitioners for compensating them for the days that they were made to work while the Civil Writ Petition No.3362 of 1994 - 3 - office staff had the benefit of holidays and to compensate them for the days when they worked during holidays to the extent to which the bye- laws provide for. Having regard to the fact that the case has been pending since the year 1994, the primary consideration shall be by the respondents themselves in the light of the observations of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Municipal Employees Union's case and if the petitioners still have a grievance or if their grievance is not fully redressed, the petitioners shall be at liberty to seek for adjudication before the competent authority under the Industrial law. The 2nd respondent shall consider the claim of the petitioners within a period of 8 weeks from the date of the receipt of the copy of this order. 4. The writ petition is disposed of with the above directions. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 16.03.2010 sanjeev