IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.14668 of 2006 Date of decision:24.10.2009 Executive Engineer, PWD B&R, K.No.99, Sector 4, Panchkula, now Executive Engineer, Construction Division, Hr. PWD (B&R), Haryana, near Labour Chowk, Sector 33, Chandigarh. ...Petitioner versus Babu Ram and others ...Respondents. CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Mr. D.S.Nalwa, Additional Advocate General, Haryana, for the petitioner. Mr. Gian Inder Sharma, Advocate, for respondent No.1. ---- 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 under challenge is a direction for reinstatement and back wages. The claim of the workman before the Labour Court was that he had been employed on daily wages since 1988 till the year 1996 and that he had been illegally terminated from service although he had completed 240 days of continuous service before his termination. His contention was that there was no compliance of statutory provisions of Section 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act and hence, the termination was bad. 2. The contention of the management was that the workman had been employed under a particular scheme and there was no workman Civil Writ Petition No.14668 of 2006 - 2 - available. They had subsequently been extracting the work through contractors and they had disengaged all the daily rated workmen. On evidence through an admission by the management-witness, it was elicited that the workman had completed 240 days of continuous service, prior to the date of termination. The actual details of the scheme of getting work through a contractor were not available and the Labour Court found that the termination of service was in violation of Section 25-F and directed reinstatement. 3. The learned counsel appearing for the State would contend that the workman could not have been appointed on daily rated basis otherwise than through a process of recruitment through appropriate advertisement and the appointment had been in violation of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. Such a contention has not been stated before the Labour Court and it shall be impermissible for the Government to make such a contention. I, therefore, reject the contention that there was any illegality in the manner of appointment. Even the details of the scheme under which the workman was supposed to have been employed are not given on specific terms and it is not possible to treat the termination as occurring within Section 2(oo)(bb) of the Industrial Disputes Act, and direction for reinstatement, under such circumstance, was perfectly justified. 4. As regards the claim for back wags, it shall be the duty of the workman to plead that he had not been gainfully employed during the time when he had been allegedly, wrongly, terminated from service. There is no such pleading or evidence. The award of the Labour Court Civil Writ Petition No.14668 of 2006 -3 - granting the workman full back wages, under the circumstance, is not appropriate. I am of the view that for a workman, who had worked for more than 9 years at a stretch, cannot be denied his back wages in full. In my view, the appropriate relief for the workman, which will meet the ends of justice, would be to provide 50% back wages. 5. The award of the Labour Court is confirmed in all respects except the direction for full back wages, which shall be restricted to 50% back wages. 6. The writ petition is, accordingly, dismissed, with such modification as detailed above. (K.KANNAN) 24.10.2009 JUDGE sanjeev