HEM SINGH Vs. PRESIDING OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This order will dispose of two writ petitions 1802 and 2611 of 1989 in which common questions of law and fact arise for determination.

(2.) The services of about 40 clerks including the petitioners were terminated in October, 1985 by the Haryana State Cooperative Land Development Bank Ltd., Chandigarh (for short, the bank) on the ground that they did not pass the typing test which was a condition precedent mentioned in their letters of appointment. Petitioners alongwith Sat Pal and others raised separate industrial disputes challenging their termination and those disputes were referred for adjudication to different Labour Courts having jurisdiction in the respective areas. The Labour Courts as per their awards found that the termination was in contravention of the provisions of section 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (hereinafter called the Act) and, therefore, directed the management to reinstate them but without back wages. Annexure P-6 with the writ petition is the impugned award given in case of Hem Singh workman. The awards to the extent they denied back wages to the workmen were challenged by them in this Court and the writ petitions were allowed and the bank was directed to pay back wages to the workmen. Some other workmen filed writ petitions directly in this Court against their termination and the order of their termination was also set aside and the bank was directed to pay to them back wages. In some of these cases the bank filed special leave petitions in the Supreme Court and the Apex Court by an order in S.L.P. (C) No. 8091 of 1989 subsequently reviewed on 4.12.1990 allowed the Special Leave Petitions and while upholding the direction to reinstate the workmen further directed that they would not be entitled to claim any salary from the date of their removal till they were re-employed. Similarly against the order passed by this Court in C.W.P. 11666 of 1988 whereby the award of the Labour Court declining the back wages to the workmen was set aside and the bank was directed to pay the same was set aside by the Supreme Court in Civil Appeal 575 of 1991 and the workman was directed to be reinstated but without back wages. The case of the petitioners is identical and they have filed the present petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution challenging the impugned awards to the extent they have been denied back wages.

(3.) The argument of the learned counsel for the petitioners is that the Labour Court has erred in law in not awarding back wages inasmuch as it was for the bank to show that the petitioner-workmen had remained unemployed during the period of their forced idleness after their services were terminated. In support of his contention he relied on a decision of this Court in Satpal and others v. Presiding Officer, Labour Court and others,1989 2 RSJ 746. Sat Pal and others were also clerks whose services were terminated by the bank along with the petitioners and this case, no doubt, supports the contention of the petitioners but it appears that the bank did not file any appeal against the decision in Sat Pal's case . As already mentioned earlier, in the case of other similarly situated clerks this court had directed the bank to pay back wages to them but this part of the direction was set aside by their Lordship of the Supreme Court in Gurdial Singh v. Haryana State Cooperative Land Development Bank, Ltd., Chandigarh and others, Civil Appeal No. 575 of 1991 decided on 4.2.1991 and in Vijay Pal Shinghmar v. Haryana State Cooperative Land Development Bank Ltd. and others, SLP (C) No. 8091 of 1991 decided on 4.12.1990 after reviewing the earlier order of dismissal of the Special Leave Petition.