EXECUTIVE ENGINEER Vs. PRESIDING OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In W.P. (C) No. 11455 of 2006 the petitioner-Management challenges the award dated 22nd July, 2004 passed by the Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Bhubaneswar in Industrial Dispute Case No. 116 of 1997 directing reinstatement the workman-opposite party No. 2 in service and to pay compensation of Rs. 5,000/- in lieu of back-wages.

(2.) On the other hand, the case of the petitioner-management is that the appointment of the workman was purely temporary in nature and as there was surplus staff in different divisions and when there was acute shortage of funds for payment of regular wages, the management decided to disengage the surplus NMR workers and the employees who were appointed irregularly during the ban period of the Government. Accordingly, pursuant to the letter No. 9048 dated 7.3.1996 of the Managing Director, Orissa Lift Irrigation Corporation Limited, Bhubaneswar, the services of the workman was terminated with effect from 11.3.1996. Although the workman was asked to receive the compensation from the management of Assistance Engineer, Lift Irrigation Sub-Division, Bhandaripokhari vide Office Letter No. 161 dated 16.3.1996, the workman neither received the disengagement letter nor the compensation from the management. Accordingly to the management, the workman had not completed five years of continuous service as on 25.8.1994 for which he was disengaged by the management along with other employees. Thereafter, the opposite party No. 2-workman filed writ petition before this Court, numbered as O.J.C. No. 7964 of 1997 with a prayer to regularise his service and for payment of back wages, wherein this Court on 10.6.1997 directed that the petitioner shall not be terminated, if he is continuing in service, by which time the opposite party-workman had already been terminated from his service.

(3.) On the above pleadings of the parties, the Tribunal formulated the following two issues, they are: