1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH : NAGPUR WRIT PETITION No. 4399/2009. ( Managing Director, RSRG Mohota Spinning -: versus :- Santosh Yadav Chakre and others ) Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram, appearances, Court's orders Court's or Judge's orders or directions and Registrar's orders. CORAM : B.P. DHARMADHIKARI, J. DATED : JANUARY 27, 2010. Heard Shri S.G. Zinjarde, learned counsel for petitioner and learned A.G.P. for respondent nos. 2 and 3. Respondent no.1 is served. The Competent Authority under Section 7 of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 and Appellate Authority under Section 7[7] thereof, have found respondent no.1 entitled to receive gratuity. They have concluded that though working as Badli employee, respondent no.1 has rendered 240 days of continuous service. The said finding is being assailed before this Court. Shri Zinjarde, learned counsel invites attention to the cross examination of respondent no.1, where he accepts that all entries in his service book are correct. He also accepted that he was not completing 240 days in a year and that was the position continuously for 5 years. He also accepted that he was not entitled to claim gratuity. 2 In the face of this admission, the learned counsel states that the Authority has erroneously added days of weekly off and public holidays to his working days to conclude that he has put in 240 days of continuous service in each year. Reliance is being placed on an unreported order dated 17.11.2009 delivered by the learned Single Judge of Madhya Pradesh High Court (at Jabalpur) in Writ Petition No. 9771/2008 [s]. Perusal of the order passed by the Hon’ble Madhya Pradesh High Court reveals that there the Appellate Authority under Payment of Gratuity Act has remanded the matter back to the competent Authority to look into the provisions of Factory Act to find out, whether Badli employee had put in 240 days of continuous service or not. In view of this specific remand, the question of counting 240 days, services of Badli employee was required to be appreciated by the High Court. In the present matter, there was no defence by the petitioner in appeal and there is no ground even before this Court that act of counting public holidays and weekly off days as service for the purpose of computation of 240 days itself by the competent Authority is perverse or illegal. The very basis of the order of Competent Authority is addition of weekly off days and public holidays to the service of respondent no.1. Petitioners ought to have demonstrated that respondent no.1 did not work for 6 days in a week and therefore, was not entitled to weekly off or to public holidays. In absence of such assertion by the petitioner, I find that the judgment of Hon’ble Madhya Pradesh High Court is not applicable. The question of burden of proof becomes irrelevant, because document produced by the 3 petitioner are looked into by the competent Authority and it has added only weekly off days and public holidays to the working days shown therein. As there is no challenge to this I am not in a position to interfere in the matter in exercise of writ jurisdiction. Writ Petition is dismissed, with no order as to cost. JUDGE Rgd.