JUDGMENT

CHINNAPPA REDDY, J. :— Santosh Gupta, the appellant workman (a woman), was employed in the State Bank of Patiala, the Mall, Patiala, from July 13, 1973, till August 21, 1974, when her services were terminated. Though there were some breaks in service for a few days, those breaks are not relevant for the purpose of deciding this case though we may have to advert to them in another connection. Despite the breaks, the workman had admittedly worked for 240 days, in the year preceding August 21, 1974. According to the workman the termination of her services was retrenchment within the meaning of that expression in Section 2 (oo) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, since it did not fall within any of the 3 excepted cases mentioned in Section 2 (oo). Since there was retrenchment, it was bad for non-compliance with the provisions of Section 25F of the Industrial Disputes Act. On the other hand the contention of the management was that the termination of services was not due to discharge of surplus labour. It was due to the failure of the workmen to pass the test which would have enabled her to be confirmed in the service. Therefore, it was not retrenchment within the meaning of Sec. 2 (oo) of the Industrial Disputes Act.

2. Section 25-F prescribes that no workman employed in any industry who has been in continuous service for not less than one year shall be retrenched by the employer until - (a) the workman has been given one months notice in writing indicating the reason for retrenchment and the period of notice has expired, or the workman has been paid, in lieu of such notice, wages for the period of the notice; (b) the workman has been paid at the time of retrenchment, compensation which shall be equivalent to fifteen days average pay for every completed year of continuous service or any part thereof in excess of six months and (c) notice in the prescribed manner is served on the appropriate Government or any such authority as may be specified by the appropriate Government by notification in the Official Gazette. There is a proviso to cl. (a) which dispenses with the necessity for the notice contemplated by the clause if the retrenchment is under an agreement which specifies the date for the termination of service.

3. The expression retrenchment is specially defined by Section 2 (oo) of the Act and is as follows :

"2 (oo) retrenchment means the termination by the employer of the service of a workman for any reason whatsoever, otherwise than as a punishment inflicted by way of disciplinary action, but does not include -

(a) voluntary retirement of the workman; or

(b) retirement of the workman on reaching the age of superannuation if the contract of employment between the employer and the workman concerned contains a stipulation in that behalf; or

(c) termination of the service of a workman on the ground of continued ill-health;"

4. In Hariprasad Shivshankar Shukla v. A. D. Divikar, 1957 SCR 121 the SC took the view that the word retrenchment as defined in Section 2 (oo) did not include termination of services of all workmen on a bona fide closure of an industry or on change of ownership or management of the industry. In order to provide for the situations which the SC held were not covered by the definition of the expression retrenchment, the Parliament added Sec. 25-FF and Section 25-FFF providing for the payment of compensation to the workmen in case of transfer of undertakings and in case of closure of undertakings respectively.

5. If the definition of retrenchment is looked at unaided and unhampered by precedent, one is at once struck by the remarkably wide language employed and particularly by the use of the words "termination ......... for any reason whatsoever". The definition expressly excludes termination of services as a punishment inflicted by way of disciplinary action. The definition does not include, so it expressly says, voluntary retrenchment of the workman or retrenchment of the workman on reaching the age of sup