Judgment

RANGANATH MISRA, J.-These are two appeals by special leave at the instance of the Union representing the workmen and challenge is to the reversing decision of the Division Bench of the High Court in two writ appeals - one filed by the employer-company and the other by the workmen through their Union.

2. The State Government of Tamil Nadu by order dated May 11, 1981 made a reference under Section 10(l)(d) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (hereafter Act for short) to the Industrial Tribunal of the following dispute :

"Whether the non-employment of the following workers is justified; if not, to what relief are they entitled ? To compute the relief, if any awarded in terms of money, if it could be so computed." A list of 186 workmen was appended to the reference. The Union itself had come into existence on October 1, 1980. It had written to the Company on October 14, 1980 that despite several years of service rendered by casual employees they were not being confirmed and were deprived of benefit and facilities applicable to permanent workmen.

3. Before the Tribunal the employer and the workmen filed their respective statements. On November 25, 1981, on behalf of the workmen an amendment was sought which the Tribunal allowed. The company challenged the amendment by filing a writ petition before the High Court but the High Court was of the view that the propriety of the amendment could be assailed, if necessary, while challenging the award itself passed in due course. The Tribunal held that 181 casual employees should be re-employed with full back wages and 50 other casual employees should also be re-employed but without back wages. This direction was given on the ground that the requirement of Section 25-F of the Act had not been satisfied before termination which amounted to retrenchment.

4. The company assailed the award by filing a writ petition before the High Court. A learned Single Judge held that the relief of reinstatement with back wages should have been confined to 131 casual employees as they alone had worked for 240 days and set aside the award in respect of 50 others on the ground that they had not completed 240 days of service. Two writ appeals were filed before the Division Bench of the High Court - Writ Appeal No. 1235 of 1983 by the company challenging the affirming part of the award and Writ Appeal No. 72 of 1984 by the Union of the workmen negativing relief to 50 workmen.

5. The Division Bench went into the matter at great length. It found that until the amendment had been made the workmen had a different claim from what was ultimately pressed before the Tribunal. The Division Bench further found that there was great variation in the number of workmen for whom relief was claimed. It took note of the fact that the companys counter-statement was filed on August 1, 1981, and till that date, the respective stands of the Union and the company were clearly different. The case of the Union until then was that there was non-employment of employees on and from October 13, 1980 inasmuch as work to the casual employees was refused on that date; the companys case was that on October 13, 1980, 130 casual employees out of the list attached to the reference had actually worked and most of them had also worked on October 14 and 15, 1980. On November 25, 1981, an amendment of the original claim statement was sought by saying :

"There were certain omissions and clerical-cum-typographical mistakes with regard to the narration of events and circumstances leading to the raising of dispute relating to the non-employment of 186 workmen mentioned in the Annexure of the terms of reference and covered by this dispute."

The amended statement proceeded to state :

"On October 15, 1980, the management told the workers who had worked on that day that their services were terminated and would not be permitted to work from October 16, 1980. A number of these workers were prevented entry at the gate on October 16, 1980. The Union had decided