D.T.C. Vs. DILPAT SINGH EX-DRIVER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present writ petition has been preferred by the management/DTC assailing the Award dated 02.08.2005 passed by the learned Labour Court-II, Karkardooma Courts, Delhi in ID No.282/2001. Under the impugned Award the Labour Court, after finding that the petitioner's application for approval under Section 33 (2) (b) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 ('ID Act' for short) stood rejected, had come to the conclusion that in view of the settled legal position as laid down in Jaipur Zila Sahakari Bhoomi Vikas Ltd. vs. Ram Gopal Verma (2002) 2 SCC 244, the respondent was deemed to have been in continued service. The petitioner was, therefore, directed to reinstate the respondent with full backwages.

(2.) At the outset, it is noted that even before the impugned Award came to be passed, the respondent was reinstated in service on 09.04.2003 and has since superannuated in 2012 upon attaining the age of superannuation.

(3.) Ms.Manisha Tyagi learned counsel for the petitioner, while conceding that the respondent ought to be treated as having continued in service in view of the petitioner's application for approval having been rejected, submits that the said position still does not entitle the respondent to claim full backwages. She submits that even when an approval application made by the Management under Section 33(2)(b) of the ID Act is rejected, the grant of full backwages to a workman is not automatic and the Court has to consider all the relevant circumstances before awarding the same. By placing reliance on the decision dated 24.01.2013 in Delhi Transport Corporation vs. Sarjeevan Kumar 2013 (5) SLR 328 (Delhi) she submits that this Court can, in appropriate circumstances, substitute a direction for grant of full backwages made by the Labour Court by reducing the awarded amount of backwages. In this regard the Division Bench of this Court, in paragraphs 19 to 24 of Sarjeevan Kumar (supra), had observed as under: