PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT (G.W.) BRANCH CHIEF ENGINEER, PATIALA & ANOTHER Vs. PRESIDING OFFICER, LABOUR COURT, PATIALA & OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Respondent No.2 - workman [Ashok Kumar (deceased) now represented through LRs] died during the pendency of these proceedings on January 14, 2016. He had put in 2 years and 4 months of service as a Beldar on daily wages in the petitioning Department. He was appointed on May 06, 1986 as daily wage worker under a Scheme called 'Providing Sewerage Scheme, Nangal' and according to the workman his services were terminated on June 30, 1988.

(2.) It was the stand of the Department before the Labour Court that there was no termination involved in the reference and on the other hand the workman did not turn up for duty and absented himself from work from which absence the management seeks to draw an inference that he voluntarily abandoned his job. It was the pleaded by way of defence in the written statement filed before the Labour Court that the unit in which the workman had been employed stood wound up.

(3.) The Labour Court has reasoned in its award that mere absence of the workman does not mean that he has abandoned his services. The proposition of law may not be incorrect, but it is well settled that plea of abandonment of service is a question of intention which is a state of mind and goes to accompanying facts and circumstances for an answer with the inference drawn from a bundle of facts. It was the workman's case that no letter was written by the Management to him to join duties after he did not report for duty from July 1, 1988 onwards. The Labour Court has made much of this to bring relief to the workman. In the case of a Beldar, the employer is not under a bounden obligation to write letters asking the workman to join duty otherwise he would face disciplinary action. There is no question of disciplinary action or charge-sheet against a Beldar on daily wages, who is not protected by the procedure laid down in the Punjab Civil Services (Punishment & Appeal) Rules, 1970.