VALMIKI J. MEHTA, J.

1. By this writ petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India, petitioner impugns the award dated 1.6.2009 passed by the Presiding Officer, Central Government Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court-II (in short CGITLC) holding that respondent no. 2 is a workman and that her services were illegally retrenched by the petitioner. Petitioner was the employer and respondent no. 2 was the employee of the petitioner. Respondent no. 2 was working as Senior Confidential Secretary with the petitioner. Respondent no. 2 during the course of her employment was posted with Ms. Nancy Dickinson, Senior Manager at New Delhi. In around May 2005, respondent no. 2 was informed by the petitioner that since the services of Ms. Nancy Dickinson were dispensed with, hence the respondent no. 2 post of Senior Confidential Secretary had become redundant. Ms. Nancy Dickinson had proceeded on a sabbatical leave without it being a fixed period and which resulted in redundancy of the post which the respondent no. 2 occupied with the petitioner. The impugned letter/order of termination dated 1.10.2005 by which respondent no. 2 services were terminated reads as under:-

“HSBC

Manju Saxena

Employee No. 186099

New Delhi

1 October 2005

Sub: Termination of Employment

Manju, The question of your current job becoming redundant from May 2005 has been a subject matter of discussion and correspondence culminating in a meeting with Mr. Ashish K. Srivastava on 23 September 2005 in Mumbai.

The Bank has offered you a generous severance package, which it is now clear that you are not prepared to accept. The Bank also favourably considered your request for being accommodated in some alternate job. In the past four months since May 2005, the Bank has offered you several job opportunities at various points of time viz. Business Development Officer, Customer Service Officer, Clearing Officer, Banking Service Officer etc. However, you have not expressed your willingness to accept any of the above job opportunities, nor have you accepted the generous redundancy package offered to you.

In the circumstances, the Bank has no alternative but to terminate your services with effect from close of working hours of 1 October 2005. The Bank shall be paying you six months of compensation in lieu of Notice period as provided in your contract of employment. In addition, although not eligible, as a special case, you are also being paid compensation equivalent to fifteen days salary for every completed year of service. These amounts totaling to INR 817,071/- (Indian Rupees Eight Lacs Seventeen Thousand and Seventy One only) has been credited to your salary account yesterday.

This is subject to deduction of applicable tax.

You are further requested to get in touch with North India Human Resource Department for the full and final settlement of your dues with the Bank.

Yours Sincerely

Sd/-

Shishir Agarwal

Manager Employee Relations.”

(Underlining added)

2. The CGITLC, as per the impugned award, has held that respondent no. 2 was a workman within the meaning of the definition of workman as per Section 2(s) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (in short the Act). The CGITLC also held that respondent no. 2 has been retrenched as per the meaning of the expression retrenchment in Section 2(oo) of the Act. It was further held that since the retrenchment of the respondent no. 2 by the petitioner fell foul of Section 25F of the Act hence the termination of services of respondent no. 2 by the petitioner was illegal.

3. Before this Court, on behalf of the petitioner two arguments were urged. Before I refer to the two arguments, it is necessary to state that the case both before the CGITLC as also before this Court was heatedly contested as regards whether or not the respondent no. 2 was a workman. Petitioner had pleaded that respondent no. 2 is not a workman and a learned S