Full Judgment Text
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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CIVIL APPEAL NO. 2528 OF 2008
DIVISIONAL LOGGING MANAGER, U.P. FOREST
CORPORATION Appellant(s)
:VERSUS:
SURENDER SINGH Respondent(s)
O R D E R
Heard Ms. Rachana Srivastava, learned counsel
for the appellant in support of this appeal and Ms.
Desai, learned counsel for the respondent.
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2. This appeal seeks to challenge the judgment
and order dated 18.11.2005 rendered by the High
Court of Uttarakhand at Nainital in Writ Petition
No.1047 of 2002 thereby dismissing the writ petition
filed by the appellant. The short facts leading to
this appeal are this wise.
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3. According to the appellant, the respondent
herein was working as a Logging Forest Guard and
that he was engaged on seasonal basis. The case of
the respondent is that he had regular work to do,
his employment was not on seasonal basis and he had
rendered continuous service for more than one year.
It appears that the respondent had joined as a
Forest Guard way back in 1986 and he continued in
that position until February, 1993. It is the case
of the respondent that his services were
discontinued thereafter whereas the case of the
appellant is that since he was not coming for work,
the appellant sent him a retrenchment notice dated
19.6.1995 which, according to the appellant, he
declined to receive. In any case, the fact remained
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that before the retrenchment notice, he had raised
an industrial dispute in January, 1994.
4. Considering all these facts, the Labour Court
came to the conclusion that the order of termination
of the services of the workman was illegal and
unjustified as the retrenchment notice was
subsequent to his termination. That being so, the
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Labour Court held that it was a case of termination
of his services and not the case where he had
stopped from coming to work. Therefore, the Labour
Court was of the view that his termination with
effect from 23.2.1993 was improper and illegal. The
Labour Court, therefore, directed his reinstatement
with 50% back-wages and with costs of Rs.1,000/-.
5. A writ petition was filed by the appellant
before the High Court for quashing the order passed
by the Labour Court which, as stated earlier, came
to be dismissed by the learned Single Judge of the
Uttarakhand High Court.
6. Mr. Rachana Srivastava, learned counsel for
the appellant submitted that the appellant did not
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require the services of the respondent for all the
time and that there was seasonal work for which the
respondent was engaged. He had stopped coming to
work and therefore, instead of retrenchment notice,
the retrenchment compensation was sent to him which
fact was not considered by the Labour Court.
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7. As against that, learned counsel for the
respondent submitted that on the basis of the facts
which have come on record, the inference drawn by
the Labour Court was justified and therefore, the
High Court was right in not interfering therewith.
8. We have noticed the submissions made by the
learned counsel for the parties. The view taken by
the Labour Court appears to be a plausible one
inasmuch as the Forest Guards are very much required
in the forest and there is no reason for a lowly
paid employee not to report for duty. Similarly, the
view taken by the Labour Court that the compensation
amount was tendered to him subsequent to his
retrenchment also appears to be correct inasmuch as
the respondent had already raised an industrial
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dispute. The payment made subsequently was, in fact,
denied. In the facts and circumstances of this case,
we do not find any error in the order passed by the
Labour Court or by the High Court. The appeal is
accordingly dismissed.
9. We make it clear that in case the respondent
is not reinstated so far, he will be reinstated
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within a period of four weeks from today and the
back-wages will be paid to him within a period of
eight weeks from today.
.........................J
(H.L. GOKHALE)
..........................J
(RANJAN GOGOI)
New Delhi;
April 03, 2013.
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