MANAGEMENT OF DAILY PARTAP Vs. DELHI ADMINISTRATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is the letters patent appeal against the judgment of a Single Judge of this Court, S.B. Wad, J., who had dismissed the writ petition of the appellant herein whereby the appellant had sought quashing of the award dated 10th December, 1973 of the Industrial Tribunal.

(2.) The Tribunal vide award dated 10th December, 1973 decided the reference, which was made to it, namely, whether the retrenchment of respondent No. 3, Shri Balram, was illegal or unjustified, in favour of the workman. Aggrieved by the said award, a writ petition was filed. The respondent workman engaged one Shri S.C. Munjal as Counsel. When the case came up for hearing on 11th January 1989, no Counsel was present on behalf of the workman. The writ petition was allowed and the learned Single Judge accepted the plea, which was raised before him on behalf of the petitioner, namely, that the workman was retrenched because of financial constraints. The case of the petitioner was accepted by the learned Single Judge that the post of Cartoonist has been abolished and, secondly, the number of pages of the newspaper Daily Pratap were reduced from 8 pages to 4.

(3.) It appears that after 8 months, the workman concerned filed an application for recalling of the said order and for re-hearing of the writ petition. In the application it was, inter alia, stated that the workman had engaged a lawyer in 1974 and had even contacted him in the year 1987. The lawyer had told the workman that be will inform him about the date of the hearing but, in fact, when the hearing took place, neither the lawyer was present nor the workman was informed. On this application, the learned Single Judge vide Impugned order dated 8th February, 1991 recalled the earlier decision of 11th January, 1989 and re-heard the writ petition. He came to the conclusion that the number of pages were reduced from 8 to 4 long after the workman bad been retrenched. The learned Single Judge also took note of the fact that the workman was General Secretary of the Trade Union, and he agreed with the finding of the Tribunal that the retrenchment of the workman was illegal. While quashing the retrenchment, he awarded half of the back wages to the workman with effect from 9th September, 1973 till the date of retirement of the workman. It is this decision of the learned Single Judge which is challenged before us. Relying upon AIR 1979 Supreme Court 1047, Aribarn Tuleshwar Sharma v. Aribarn Pishak Sharma and Others, it is contended by the learned Counsel for the appellant that there was no reason as to why the Single Judge should have revoked his earlier decision of 11th January, 1989. We do not agree with this contention.