V RAVICHANDRAN Vs. MANAGEMENT M R F LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellants 1, 3 to 29, 31 and 32 are the writ petitioners and the appellants 33 to 40 are the L.Rs. of deceased second and 30th writ petitioners and challenging the dismissal W.P.No.7026 of 1997 under which the award of the Labour Court dated 20.9.1996 came to be confirmed, had filed this writ appeal.

(2.) THE facts as culled out from the award passed by the Labour Court and the writ petition are briefly stated as hereunder:-For the sake of convenience, array of parties as referred to in the writ petition is adopted in this writ appeal also. THE writ petitioners 1 to 6 and 7 to 30 were probationers and they raised Industrial Disputes by filing petitions under Section 2A(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 regarding their non-employment by the first respondent management viz., M.R.F. Limited, Ichiputhur, Vellore District.

(3.) BEFORE the Labour Court, it has been contended by the writ petitioners that the management resorts to contractual employment as a device to circumvent sub clause (oo) of Section (2) of the Industrial Disputes Act and the termination of the services of the petitioners in those cases amounts to retrenchment within the meaning of Section 2(oo) of the Act. Further, the respondent management have not complied with the mandatory requirement of Section 25F of the Industrial Disputes Act by paying retrenchment compensation to those petitioners. The orders of termination were purely because of victimisation as they were members of M.R.F Workers Union and the termination of apprentices/probationers are opposed to the statute and therefore, they prayed for reinstatement with continuity of service and back-wages.