IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH CWP No. 13119 of 2008 Date of decision: 17.02.2009 St. Joseph's Convent Secondary School .....PETITIONER VERSUS State of Punjab and others ..... RESPONDENTS CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH Present: Mr. R.S.Ahluwalia, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, AAG, Punjab, for respondents No. 1 to 3. Mr. R.S.Manhas, Advocate, for respondent No. 4. *** AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH, J. (ORAL) In the present writ petition, the challenge is to the communication/reference order dated 15.05.2008, vide which the demand, as put forth by the workman, has been referred to the Labour Court, Gurdaspur, by the appropriate Government for adjudication of the dispute therein. Counsel for the petitioner contends that the workman had earlier preferred a demand for the same cause of action when his services were alleged to have been terminated by the petitioner-Management and on that, a reference was made by the appropriate Government vide its CWP No. 13119 of 2008 -2- notification ID/No. 20208-09 dated 20.06.2002 when on decision thereon, the award went against the workman. The said award is dated 20.08.2007 passed by the Labour Court, Gurdaspur, copy whereof has been appended as Annexure P-1. He contends that for the same cause of action, a fresh demand notice under Section 2-A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, has been preferred by the workman and has only changed the date therein. He contends that when the matter has already been adjudicated upon and the award passed by the Labour Court has attained finality, it would be abuse of process of law on the part of the workman to prefer another demand notice for the same cause of action, which already stood decided against him. Counsel for respondent No. 4, on the other hand, submits that the workman has preferred this demand notice as in the earlier demand notice, he could not give the correct date of appointment. Nevertheless the date of termination was correct and, therefore, now he contends that since his date of appointment was wrongly mentioned, the award had gone against him. He contends that this is a different cause of action and, therefore, the present reference, which has been made by the appropriate Government is in accordance with law and, therefore, deserves to be upheld. I have gone through the records of the case with the able assistance of the counsel for the parties. The submissions, which have been made by the counsel for the parties, clearly show that indeed an adjudication on the question of termination of the workman from service w.e.f. 30.06.1998, as alleged by the workman in his earlier demand notice, has attained finality. Merely because of the omission on the part of the workman to give a wrong date of appointment will not change the nature of adjudication. The workman cannot be allowed to now turn around, after CWP No. 13119 of 2008 -3- the matter having gone against him, to state that because he was unable to give the correct date of appointment that would give him a fresh cause of action to agitate his claim by raising an industrial dispute. If that is allowed, there would be no end of the process of adjudication as every time, the parties would come up and state that there was some error on their part, which would now give them a new cause of action to raise a dispute. This would be against the public policy and against the spirit of the Industrial Disputes Act itself. That being so, the order/communication dated 15.05.2008 (Annexure P-4) cannot be sustained and is, hereby, quashed. Counsel for respondent No. 4-workman makes a prayer that the workman desperately needs work and, therefore, he would make an application to the petitioner-Management to consider him for appointment afresh on the post of Sweeper, on which he was earlier working. The Management may consider the claim of the workman as and when any vacancy arises, in accordance with law, for appointment on the post of Sweeper. The writ petition stands allowed in above terms. ( AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH ) JUDGE February 17, 2009 pj