IN THE HIGH COURT FOR THE STATES OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH CWP No.4170 of 2000 Date of decision : 10.8.2009 Punjab State Civil Supplies Corporation Limited … Petitioner Versus Raj Kumar and another …Respondents CORAM : HON’BLE MR.JUSTICE K. KANNAN Present: Mr.Sauravh Goel, Advocate and Mr.Brijeshwar Singh Kanwar, Advocate for Mr.Govind Goel, Advocate for the petitioner. None for the respondents. 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 Labour Court directing the reinstatement of the workman without back wages in the subject of challenging in the writ petition. The adjudication referred before the Labour Court, was alleged termination of services by the management on 15.7.1984 without any notice, charge-sheet, enquiry or compensation. The contention of the management was that the workman had himself left the service and had never returned at any time till nearly 11 years after the management came to issue a notice of termination. The objection of the management was therefore that plea of reinstatement was grossly belated and no explanation had even been given for the inordinate delay. The labour court refereed to a decision in Ajaib Singh vs. The Sirhind Coop. Marketing cum processing Service Society Ltd. and another, 1999 (3) SC 38 to hold that delay by itself ought not to have resulted in the reference being bad. 2. Learned counsel appearing for the management pointed out that the reliance of the labour court in Ajaib Singh’s case (supra) was misplaced, in CWP No.4170 of 2000 view of the fact that the said judgment dealt with the case of management not providing any prejudice and therefore, said decision had not been applied as governing the facts of the case. He contends that in this case, a demand notice under Section 2A of the Industrial Disputes Act, was issued by the management to the workman on 6.2.1995. He had made no mention why he has not taken any action from the date of the alleged termination till date when he issued the notice. It must be pointed out that even before the Labour Court he had not attempted to give any explanation for the inordinate delay. The delay itself was not a cause for rejecting reference or disentitling the workman to claim the benefits which the law assures. If a person seeks relief from a court with inordinate delay of over 10 years which is totally unexplained it is not a delay which any court can merely wink at. The learned counsel has referred several decisions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court that have dealt with the issue of unexplained delay to deny any relief to such person. I do not propose to repeat them as point well taken that there could be no condonation of an unexplained delay of over 11 years in approaching the court complaining of termination in a case where the Management found unexplained absence on ground for termination. 3. The award of the Labour Court has not considered the case in a proper perspective. Moreover, in this case, more than 25 years have passed and nature of engagement was merely temporary as chokidar on daily wages. Such a person shall not also have right to demand reinstatement in a public body such as Punjab State Civil Supplies Corporation Limited, which is governed by specific rules of recruitment. 4. The award of the Labour Court is set aside and writ petition is allowed. No costs. [ K.Kannan ] Judge 10.08.2009 2 CWP No.4170 of 2000 sd 3