DIVISIONAL MARKETING MANAGER Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This group of petitions assails the validity and legality of the order passed by the Conciliation Officer whereby the application of the workman to condone the delay in referring the matter for conciliation of the dispute was allowed. In all this group of petitions, the impugned order is more or less the same, though the wordings are slightly different and, in some of them, ex-parte orders have been passed against the Petitioners.

(2.) The facts leading to the filing of the writ petition is, that the predecessor of the Petitioner, namely, the U.P. Forest Corporation, in the course of its usual business had engaged different kinds of workers either in a permanent capacity or on a daily rated basis or on a casual basis. The services of the workers involved in the present group of writ petitions were dispensed with mostly in the year 1995, but some of them were also dispensed with earlier in the years 1992 and 1993. The reason urged in the petitions is that the predecessor of the Petitioners found the workers to be surplus and on account of decrease in the work load, a decision was taken to retrench the workers. It is alleged that junior most persons were retrenched after paying compensation as provided under the U.P. Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

(3.) Some of the workers, being aggrieved by the retrenchment, soon thereafter, raised an industrial dispute which was eventually referred for adjudication before the Labour Court. The Labour Court, after considering the matter, gave an award holding that the workers were not entitled for any relief and held that the retrenchment was valid. The Labour Court, accordingly, declined to grant any relief to the workers. The workers, being aggrieved by the said award, filed various writ petitions. The writ court allowed the writ petitions holding that the Corporation was required to adhere to the provision of retrenchment compensation and that the provision of Section 6-N was squarely applicable upon the daily rated workers employed by the Corporation. The High Court, accordingly, directed reinstatement of the workers with continuity of service and with backwages.