RAMESH KUMAR Vs. ENGINEER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The matter has been remanded by the Honourable Supreme Court by its judgment in Civil Appeal No. 4698 of 2000. The civil appeal had been originally filed against an order of this Honourable Court when it had directed a compensation of Rs. 10,000.00 in full and final settlement of the workman's claim without going into the merits of the respective contentions of parties. The Honourable Supreme Court directed that the case shall be gone into with reference to the merits of the dispute between the parties.

(2.) It is an admitted case that the workman had been employed by the management on 01.01.1993 and the order of termination was made on 21.05.1994. The complaint made on behalf of the workman was that the statutory mandate of Sec. 25-F had not been complied with and therefore, the termination was bad. Before the Labour Court, the parties were locked up in dispute with reference to the actual number of days which the workman had worked. The attempt of the workman before the Labour Court was that he had worked even in the calendar year 1993 over more than 240 days and therefore, he was entitled to compensation under Sec. 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act. This aspect was denied by the management and it contended that the workman had only 231 days of continuous service. The dispute was with reference to particularly the months March, 1993 and Dec., 1993 when according to the management, the workman had worked only for 24 days and 27 days respectively. The management had filed MW-1 which contained the details of the engagement of services of the workman from Jan., 1993 to Dec., 1993 and the split up of number of days of work, had never showed that the workman had worked for 243 days, as contended by the workman.

(3.) The workman sought to adduce evidence through copies of attendance register for March and Dec., 1993, which according to the workman, proved that he worked for 28 days in March 1993 and 31 days in Dec. 1993. The copy of the document which had been filed by the workman had been disputed by the management but the Labour Court took note of the fact that the original register itself had not been produced by the management. The Labour Court, however, found that even if the document as filed by the workman was to be taken note of, the workman would not have completed 240 days. It is evident that the parties were taking the focus only on the continuous service during the year 1993 and did not advert to the issue whether the workman had continuous service upto 21.05.1994 which would qualify within the definition of Sec. 25-B as "continuous service" if a reckoning was to be made backward from 21.05.1994. In other words, if reckoning was to be made from June 1993 to 21.05.1994, the workman did not have 240 days.