ABDUL RASHID Vs. INDIAN SAILORS HOME SOCIETY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Indian Sailors Home Society at Masjid Bunder Siding Road, Bombay, is a charitable organisation which caters to the needs of Indian merchant navy ratings below the rank of officers, who have to come to Bombay in search of work. The Society provides for lodging facilities at reasonable rates to about 1000 sailors and the inmates of the Society's hostel manage their cooking on a cooperative basis. The Society is run by a managing committee headed by the Chairman of the Bombay Port Trust and some 18 prominent members including directors of various shipping companies. The contribution from the ratings being nominal, the expenses of running the hostel is met through donations. As the Society is not at present receiving adequate donations, it has suffered a deficit of Rs. 88,140 as on July 1987 and right from 1982, it is running in deficit.

(2.) Abdul Rashid was employed by the Society as a watchman and after he had put in about 15 years of service, he was sanctioned leave from 5 September 1977 to 11 November 1977. According to the Society all the workmen employed by them had gone on strike with effect from 6 June 1977, and it lasted for 87 days. Abdul Rashid claims that he was not taken back on his job after he reported on duty but the Society claims that the workman did not desire to continue in the service.

(3.) In Reference IDA No. 270 of 1979 before the Eighth Labour Court the workman examined himself and the Society put one Superintendent in the box. Being mainly the case of documentary evidence, the learned Presiding Officer concluded that it is difficult to accept the stand of the Society that the workman had voluntarily abandoned his job because there was nothing to indicate that the Society informed the workman about his unauthorised absence from duty and asked him to report on duty. The Labour Court thereafter considered the question of relief to be granted to the workman and concluded that as the workman had given an undertaking to the Society on 31st August 1977, he will be deemed to have given up his claim of reinstatement as a peon. Following this reasoning, the Labour Court denied the relief of reinstatement and directed the employer to pay the workman one year's wages as compensation.