U P STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD Vs. RAMVIR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD, the learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Manu Mishra holding brief of Sri Ashok Trivedi, the learned counsel for the respondent workman. By means of this petition the petitioner has challenged the validity and legality of the award passed by the Industrial Tribunal whereby the petitioner has been directed to reinstate the workman with effect from the date when junior workers to the workman were engaged and further directed to pay wages from the said date.

(2.) THE Union on behalf of the workman espoused the cause by referring a dispute with regard to the validity of the termination of the workman w. e. f. 19. 11. 1977. This dispute was raised and referred after almost 10 years by an order of the State Government dated 12. 1. 1988. The petitioner in their written statement contended that the respondent was engaged on exigencies of service on daily rated basis and that he had never worked for 240 days in a calender year nor the employer had dispensed his services and that the workman himself had abandoned and left the services on his own accord. On the other hand, the Union, in the written statement, contended that the services of the workman was wrongly terminated and that he had worked for more than 240 days and that his services could not be dispensed with without complying with the provisions of Section 6-N of the Act. The Union contended that since retrenchment compensation had not been paid, the termination of the services of the workman was wholly illegal and that he was liable to be reinstated with continuity of service and with full back wages. In the rejoinder statement, the employer submitted that the workman was gainfully employed and that after leaving the services, the workman had joined the services of a sugar factory.

(3.) BEFORE the Industrial Tribunal, the workman appeared and gave his deposition admitting that after being wrongfully retrenched by the petitioner he was gainfully employed in a sugar factory where he is working as a permanent seasonal workman since December, 1977.