TOODI RAMANAMMA Vs. SINGARENI COLLIERIES COMPANY LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Proverbially speaking, lightening never strikes the same place twice. But, in practical parlance, human calamity does strike a person twice or even more. At least in this case, it did. The petitioner, a widow close to 70 years old, was left destitute by her husband, who once was a workman of the respondent Company (Singareni Calories Company Limited). Later, she was deserted by her only daughter, who disappeared, having gone in search of her husband, whose whereabouts too could not be traced even to this day.

(2.) To dilate on the facts ever so briefly, so to speak in a manner of oxymoron, the petitioner's husband, during his lifetime, was working as Board Mazdoor in exploration department, Bellampalli area under the control of the respondent Company, having joined the service in the year 1962. While he was in service, being issueless, the said workman adopted a girl child on 11.01.1988 as per the Hindu religious rites and customs. In course of time, the said workman married off his adopted daughter and started living with them along with his wife. When age and illness caught up with the said workman, on 14.11.1992 he took voluntary retirement on the ground of medical invalidation.

(3.) Consequent upon his retirement, the petitioner's husband made an application to the respondent Company on 08.02.1993 to provide employment to his son-in-law under dependent category. The said representation was followed up with another one on 25.08.1993, but to no avail. Having perhaps married the workman's daughter on the lure of an employment, since the workman could not prevail over the respondent Company to consider his application positively to provide employment to his son-in-law, the said son-in-law, frustrated as he had been, started harassing the workman's daughter. Eventually the son-in-law deserted the family and remained untraced. Broken hearted at the plight of his daughter, the workman died on 08.03.2005. The mother and daughter were left alone to fend for themselves. Not too long thereafter, went the daughter in search of her husband with a hope that he could be persuaded, if found, to come back so that the family could have a breadwinner. Unfortunately, though years went by, even the daughter did not come back. Worse still, she has never been heard of.