VIRENDRA KUMAR Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS writ petition has been filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India in the matter of violation of the fundamental rights of the petitioner under Article 14,16, 21 and 31(d) of the Constitution of India, wherein the petitioner has challenged the verbal order of retrenchment dated 1st March, 1989, whereby the services of the petitioner, who was appointed as a Beldar on daily wage basis, were terminated by the respondents without providing any opportunity of hearing to the petitioner or even issuing any show -cause notice to the petitioner.

(2.) THE facts giving rise to the filing of this writ petition, briefly stated, are that the petitioner was appointed as Beldar on daily -wage basis @ Rs. 14/ - per day, on 1 -2 -87 in the office of the respondents at Bharatpur and he was under the charge of Assistant Engineer.PWD Sub -Division, Nadbai, District Bharatpur. During the period 1.2.87 till March, 1989 the petitioner was made to work with artificial breaks in service. It is contended by the petitioner that during the aforesaid period the petitioner had continuously discharged his duties as Beldar for a period of 25 months. There was no complaint against the petitioner during the course of his employment till 1.3.89 when the services of the petitioner were terminated by an oral order passed by the respondents. It has been further contended in the writ petition that striking out the name of the workman from the Juster Roll of the Management amounts to termination of service and such termination can be termed as retrenchment within the meaning of Section 2(00) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947(hereinafter to be referred as 'the Act'). It has been further contended by the petitioner tha't the provisions of Section 25F (a) and (b) are mandatory and any order of retrenchment passed in violation of these two clauses is invalid and the termination order is illegal since no notice or pay or compensation in lieu of notice as required by the Act was given to the petitioner and hence the petitioner has prayed for reinstatement with full backwages and has further prayed for quashing the impugned order of termination dated 1.3.89 passed by respondent No. 4, namely. The Assistant Engineer, P.W.D, Sub - Division, Nadbai, District Bharatpur.

(3.) DURING the course of hearing reliance was placed by the learned Counsel for the respondents on Annex -R/1 and Annex -R/2 annexed with the reply to the writ petition which contains the Muster Roll of actual working days of the petitioner from February, 1987 till November, 1988 totalling 292 days in all. It has been further contended that the requirement ofjhe minimum number of actual working days should be 240 days in a calender year as against which the petitioner had worked for 205 1/2 days from April, 1988 to March, 1989.