THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.RAMULU WRIT PETITION Nos.8391, 8538, 8539, 8502, 8540, 8544, 8844, 8845, 9723 and 9978 of 2005 COMMON ORDER: In all these writ petitions, common questions of law and fact arise for consideration; therefore they are being disposed of by this common order. These writ petitions are filed for a Mandamus declaring the notice dated 08.04.2005, dispensing with the services of the petitioners with effect from 11.04.2005, as illegal, arbitrary and violative of provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act. According to the petitioners, some of them are work charged employees and some are N.M.R. employees working in the respondent Housing Board and they had put in uninterrupted regular service ranging from 15 to 33 years. Their services are provincialized on completion of 10 years of service and they are extended with the benefits on par with regular employees from the date on which they have completed 10 years of service. While so, the respondent Housing Board, by invoking the provisions of Section 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (for short ‘the I.D.Act’), issued a notice dated 08.04.2005, dispensing with the services of the petitioners along with some other employees with effect from 11.04.2005 on the ground that they are found surplus. The petitioners assert that since the respondent Housing Board is engaged in the construction activity and it has more than 100 employees, it is obligatory on the part of the respondents to comply with the provisions of Section 25-N and chapter 5-B of the I.D.Act. The grievance of the petitioners is that before resorting to retrenchment/termination of their services, the respondent Board did not obtain prior permission of the appropriate Government as required under Section 25-N of the I.D.Act, therefore, the impugned notice and consequential retrenchment of their services are null and void. Their further grievance is that though no individual notices of retrenchment were issued to them and no retrenchment compensation as required under Section 25-F (a) (b) of the I.D.Act was offered to them, they are not being allowed to attend to duties from 11.04.2005. Hence, this writ petition. Learned counsel for the petitioners submits that as the respondent Housing Board failed to comply with the provisions of Section 25-F and 25-N of the I.D.Act, the impugned notice and the consequential retrenchment of the petitioners are illegal and arbitrary and the petitioners are entitled to all the benefits under the law. Learned counsel relied on the judgment of the apex Court in Harjinder Singh vs. Punjab State Warehousing Corporation[1]. Sri A.K.Jaya Prakash Rao, learned Standing counsel for A.P.Housing Board, appearing for the respondent Board submits that after retrenchment, the petitioners were offered notice pay and retrenchment compensation as required under Section 25-F of the I.D.Act, but they have not accepted the same. He further submits that as many as 433 retrenched employees have accepted the notice pay and retrenchment compensation offered by the respondent Board, but the petitioners have refused to receive the same and therefore, no fault can be found with the respondent Board. I have given my earnest consideration to the respective submissions made by the learned counsel on either side. Learned counsel for the petitioners has drawn the attention of this Court to paragraph 23 of the Harjinder Singh’s case referred supra, which reads as under: “Of late, there has been a visible shift in the courts approach in dealing with the cases involving the interpretation of social welfare legislations. The attractive mantras of globalization and liberalization are fast becoming the raison deter of the judicial process and an impression has been created that the constitutional courts are no longer sympathetic towards the plight of industrial and unorganized workers. In large number of cases like the present one, relief has been denied to the employees falling in the category of workmen, who are illegally retrenched from service by creating by-lanes and side-lanes in the jurisprudence developed by this Court in three decades. The stock plea raised by the public employer in such cases is that the initial employment/engagement of the workman-employee was contrary to some or the other statute or that reinstatement of the workman will put unbearable burden on the financial health of the establishment. The courts have readily accepted such plea unmindful of the accountability of the wrong doer and indirectly punished the tiny beneficiary of the wrong ignoring the fact that he may have continued in the employment for years together and that micro wages earned by him may be the only source of his livelihood. It need no emphasis that if a man is deprived of his livelihood, he is deprived of all his fundamental and constitutional rights and for him the goal of social and economic justice, equality of status and of opportunity, the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution remain illusory. Therefore, the approach of the courts must be compatible with the constitutional philosophy of which the Directive Principles of State Policy constitute an integral part and justice due to the workman should not be denied by entertaining the specious and untenable grounds put forward by the employer public or private.” In the light of the aforesaid observations made by the apex Court, learned counsel for the petitioners submits that the action of the respondent Board in not paying compensation to the petitioners, having retrenched them from service without following due procedure, is unjustified, whereas the learned counsel for the respondent has taken a stand that though the petitioners were offered notice pay and retrenchment compensation, subsequent to their retrenchment, along with other retrenched employees, they have refused to receive the same and therefore the respondent Board cannot be faulted. I am not in agreement with the stand taken by the learned counsel appearing for the respondent Housing Board. The notice pay and the retrenchment compensation as contemplated under Section 25-F of the I.D. Act must be paid along with notice. In the case on hand, since it is the stand of the respondents that notice pay and retrenchment compensation is paid subsequent to issuance of impugned notice, I am of the considered opinion that the impugned notice issued by the respondent Board is non est in the eye of law and the same is liable to be set aside, so far as the petitioners alone are concerned. Accordingly, the writ petitions are allowed setting aside the impugned notice dated 08.04.2005 issued by the respondent Board insofar as the petitioners are concerned, and the petitioners are entitled for reinstatement with continuity of service, but without any backwages and other attendant benefits. The respondents shall reinstate the petitioners into service, if they are not already in service as per the interim directions of this Court. If any of the petitioners retired from service or expired during pendency of this litigation, they or their legal heirs, as the case may be, shall be paid all the benefits as per their eligibility treating that they continued in service till the date of their retirement/death. No order as to costs. _____________ C.V.RAMULU,J 08.02.2011 v v [1] (2010) 3 SCC 192