Judgment · High Court
Case at a glance
Outcome
Dismissed
petition is dismissed with costs of Rs
Judgment
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MN BHANDARI Mr Manoj Goyal – for petitioner Mr DK Dixit – for respondent workman BY THE COURT: By this writ petition, award dated 19.12.2011 has been challenged. The respondent-workman has been reinstated with back wages to the extent of 30%. Learned counsel for petitioner Club submits that the labour court proceeded in the matter without receipt of original letter of reference as they had received only photo copy of the reference. It is further stated that the term of reference indicates the date of termination as 23.6.2004, whereas, respondent workman, in his cross examination, referred the date of termination as 22.6.2004, however, the fact aforesaid was also ignored by the labour court. It is lastly contended that it was the 2 respondent workman's case that he was not allowed to enter into the club premises thus burden to prove aforesaid fact was lying on the workman, however, it has been shifted on the petitioner-club, thereby, statement of the witnesses produced by them were considered with incorrect interpretation as if the petitioner club restrained the workman to enter into the club premises, rather, no such restriction was imposed by the petitioner club. I have considered submissions of learned counsel for the parties and perused the record. First two issues raised by petitioner club are hyper- technical in nature inasmuch as the fact regarding reference of the dispute to the labour court has not been disputed. The only argument is that labour court proceeded with the reference without getting original copy of the reference. I find that no such argument was ever raised before the labour court and even if, objection was taken before the labour court, it is nothing but hyper technical objection and without any substance. When the dispute was raised by the respondent workman and has been referred to the labour court as per admission of counsel of the petitioner himself then getting information through a photo copy of reference is enough to proceed with the matter. 3 So far as second argument in reference to the date of termination is concerned, reference indicates termination w.e.f.
Operative part
23.6.2004. If the cross-examination of the workman is looked into, it indicates that from 22.6.2004 he was removed from duties. The workman had not stated that on 22.6.2004, he was not allowed to work, rather, it may be that after working on 22.6.2004, respondent workman has been discontinued. In that event, the effective date of termination became as 23.6.2004. Even otherwise, difference of one day in the date of termination cannot be said to be so fatal so as to nullify the award itself. Petitioner club seems to be pursuing the matter on hyper technical grounds which are having no substance. The last argument is that petitioner club never stopped the workman to enter into the club premises and statement of the witness produced by the club was given incorrect interpretation. I find that according to the petitioner club themselves, they never stopped the workman to enter into the premises of the club to treat it to be a case of termination. If tht is so, then I find as to why they are opposing the award, rather, before the conciliation officer itself, direction should have been given to the workman to join the post immediately. The petitioner 4 club has throughout contested the matter against termination and now they are taking objections regarding interpretation of statement of witness. I do not find any illegality in the finding of facts recorded by the labour court. In view of discussion made above, I do not find any substance in any of the arguments raised above. Accordingly, writ petition is dismissed with costs of Rs.2,000/- to be paid to the respondent-workman. bnsharma (MN BHANDARI), J. All corrections made in the judgment/ order have been incorporated in the judgment/ order being emailed. (BN Sharma) PS-cum-JW
Precedent status how later indexed judgments have treated this case
No known negative treatment found in the Courts & Cases corpus.
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