HARYANA STATE AGRICULTURAL Vs. PRESIDING OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner management has filed the present writ petition impugning the ex-parte award dated 27.8.2004 and order dated 25.2.2011 whereby the application filed by it for setting aside of the ex-parte award was dismissed.

(2.) The proceedings in the case arise out of an industrial dispute raised by respondent no. 2/ workman claiming that his services were dispensed with in violation of the provisions of Section 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (for short, 'the Act'). He claimed that he was appointed on 15.4.1998 for 89 days. Thereafter he continued working upto 16.7.1999. As he had completed more than 240 days before his termination, provisions of Section 25-F of the Act were required to be complied with before his termination. The matter was referred to the learned court below. The petitioner management was proceeded against ex-parte and the learned court below vide award dated 27.8.2004 directed reinstatement of the workman with continuity of service and full back wages from the date of demand notice i.e. 6.3.2003. The application filed by the petitioner management for setting aside the aforesaid ex-parte award was dismissed on 25.2.2011. The aforesaid two orders are impugned before this court.

(3.) Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the respondent-workman in the present case was appointed for the first time vide letter dated 15.4.1998 for a period 89 days as Arrival Recorder purely on contract basis and posted in Market Committee, Tarori. Thereafter, his services were engaged vide letter dated 11.9.1988 for 89 days basis on the same terms and conditions. Again in the next wheat crop, the petitioner was appointed for 89 days vide letter dated 12.4.1999 on same terms and conditions. He was engaged only during the season for recording arrival of the crop in Mandi. Though he was posted in Market Committee, Tarori, from where he was drawing his salary, however, deliberately, he did not implead the Market Committee, Tarori, as party in his claim petition.