Sarnam Sharma v. Presiding Officer, Labour Court-III, Faridabad & Anr.

CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH Present: Mr. Adish Gupta, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. Amit Sharma, Advocate, for respondent No. 2. *** AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH, J. (ORAL) Prayer in the present writ petition is for quashing of the Award dated 02.03.2009 (Annexure P-1), vide which the reference has been answered against the workman holding him not entitled to any relief on the ground that the workman had failed to prove before the Labour Court that he had completed 240 days in service under the respondents during 12 preceding months from the date of his termination from service. CWP No. 9436 of 2009 2 Counsel for the petitioner contends that the petitioner had worked with the respondents from 05.03.1993 to 05.09.1994. He contends that the workman had completed more than 240 days in service with the respondents and before terminating the service of the workman, neither retrenchment compensation was paid nor any notice or pay in lieu of the notice was given to the workman, therefore, Section 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act stood violated. He contends that the Award deserves to be set aside and the workman held entitled to reinstatement in service along with all consequential benefits. He submits that before the Labour Court, the workman had produced the photocopies of the log book, which documents were Mark 2 to Mark 13. The Labour Court has accepted the documents Mark 2 to Mark 5 as correct documents and has, on that basis, calculated that the workman had worked for a period of 235 days with the respondents but has not given any benefit of documents Mark 6 to Mark 13 on the ground that the signatures of the workman were in English on those documents whereas the workman had signed the demand notice, the claim statement and the affidavit before the Labour Court in Hindi. He contends that when Mark 2 to Mark 5, which were also photocopies, have been taken into consideration by the Court to be valid documents, the documents Mark 6 to Mark 13 also deserve to be taken into consideration when these also are the documents available with the respondents. He contends, therefore, if the said documents Mark 6 to Mark 13 are also taken into consideration, the period of service of the workman would exceed much more than the required period of 240 days with the respondents in 12 preceding months. He, on this basis, also prays for reversing the finding given by the Labour Court with regard to the work put CWP No. 9436 of 2009 3 in by the workman with the respondents-Management. He further contends that the respondents-Management has, with an intention to deprive the petitioner of the benefit which would have been conferred on the petitioner as per the Industrial Disputes Act, terminated his service prior to he having completed more than 240 days in service and, therefore, has resorted to unfair labour practice. He relies upon a judgment of a Division Bench of this Court in the case of The Kapurthala Central Co-operative Bank Ltd., Kapurthala vs. The Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Jullundur and others, 1984 LAB. I.C. 974 in support of his contention. On the other hand, counsel for respondent No. 2 submits that the Labour Court has rightly come to the conclusion that the workman has only worked for 235 days with respondent No. 2-Management. He contends that the Labour Court has proceeded to take into consideration the documents Mark 2 to Mark 5 primarily for the reason that the Management was not able to produce any contrary record to those documents whereas apart from the documents Mark 6 to Mark 13 being signed by the workman in English language, which were disbelieved by the Labour Court, the Management has produced copies of the Muster Roll entries for the year 1994, which clearly showed that the workman has not worked with the Management for the said period and, therefore, the Labour Court has rightly, on the basis of the evidence led by the parties, given a finding that the workman has not completed more than 240 days in 12 preceding months from the date of his termination and was thus not entitled to any relief. He, on this basis, prays for dismissal of the present writ petition. I have heard the counsel for the parties and have gone through the records of the case. CWP No. 9436 of 2009 4 A perusal of the Award would show that as a matter of fact, the workman had produced the documents Mark 2 to Mark 13 before the Labour Court. It is not the case of the petitioner-workman that the original records were not traceable. He could have summoned the original records to prove these documents on record in accordance with law. What has been produced by the workman as Mark 2 to Mark 13 were the photocopies of the documents. The Labour Court had taken into consideration Mark 2 to Mark 5 primarily on the ground that no counter evidence in the form of documents was produced by respondent No. 2- Management. That apart, those documents Mark 2 to Mark 5 were signed by the workman in Hindi which was similar to the signatures on the demand notice, claim statement and the affidavit field before the Labour Court. The documents Mark 6 to Mark 13 were signed by the workman in English, which have not been accepted by the Labour Court to be properly signed by the workman. In any case, Junior Engineer Shri Daulat Ram Bhashkar, under whom the workman has alleged to have worked in the year 1994, has produced the Muster Rolls for January, 1994 to September, 1994 and in none of those Muster Rolls, the name of the workman finds mention. In the light of the positive documents produced by the Management, which were exhibited on record, the documents Mark 6 to Mark 13 could not be taken into consideration by the Labour Court and has rightly so not relied upon by the Labour Court. The findings recorded by the Labour Court are based on the evidence which has been led by the parties before the Labour Court and, therefore, do not call for any interference by this Court. The judgment relied upon by the counsel for the petitioner in the case of The Kapurthala Central Co-operative Bank Ltd., Kapurthala (supra) does not applicable to the case of the petitioner as the workman CWP No. 9436 of 2009 5 has claimed that he had worked with the respondents from 05.03.1993 to

05.09.1994. The documents, which have been produced on record, do not show that the workman had worked with the respondents from January, 1994 onwards. The assertion of the workman is not that the service of the workman was terminated to deprive the petitioner-workman of the benefit of the provisions of Section 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act. If the claim of the workman is taken to be correct, the workman would have completed much more period with the respondents than 240 days, as has been asserted by the workman. On the basis of the evidence, which has been placed on record, it has been duly proved that in the year 1994, the workman has not worked with the respondent No. 2-Management, therefore, the contention, as raised by the counsel for the petitioner and the reliance on the judgment aforesaid by the counsel for the petitioner, is totally misplaced. Finding no merit in the present writ petition, the same stands dismissed. March 09, 2010 ( AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH ) JUDGE