1. Heard learned Advocate Mr. PC Chaudhari for petitioner. Petitioner workman has challenged award passed by labour court in Reference NO. 1647 of 1996 Exh. 49 dated 13.2.2009. Labour Court, Ahmedabad has set aside termination order dated 21.6.1996 and granted reinstatement with continuity of service with 25 per cent back wages for interim period with costs of Rs.25,000.00, to be paid by employer to workman.

2. Learned Advocate Mr. PC Chaudhari for petitioner has raised contention before this court that while denying 75 per cent back wages to workman, labour court has not given proper reasons and relevant factors have not been considered by labour court and merely raising presumption about gainful employment, labour court has wrongly denied 75 per cent back wages for interim period. He also submitted that earlier, while passing ex parte award, 40 per cent back wages were granted by labour court and now it has been reduced to 25 per cent and relevant factors like nature of work, nature of employment, permanent operator etc. has been ignored by labour court. He relied upon two decisions of apex court. One is 2010 (124) FLR 72 in case of M/s. Reetu Marbles and Prabhakant Shukla and anotehr is 2009-II-LLJ-9 (SC) in case of Novartis India Ltd. And State of West Bengal and others. While relying upon aforesaid two decisions of apex court, learned advocate Mr. Chaudhari submitted that in case when order of termination has been held to be invalid, then, workman is entitled for full back wages for interim period because gainful employment has not been proved by employer. Except that, no other submission is made by learned advocate Mr. Chaudhari before this court and no other decision has been cited by learned Advocate Mr. Chaudhari before this court.

3. I have considered submissions made by learned advocate Mr. Chaudhari. I have also considered contentions raised by petitioner in memo of petition. I have also considered order passed by this court in special civil application no. 29876 of 2007 dated 14th August, 2008. I have also considered statement of claim and other documents which are annexed to present petition. I have also perused award passed by labour court at Exh. 49 in Reference No. 1647 of 1996. It is necessary to note that order of reference is dated 15th November, 1996. Initially, an ex parte award was passed by labour court on 4th June, 2001 vide Exh. 13 wherein labour court has granted reinstatement with 40 per cent back wages for interim period. This Court has, vide order passed in Special Civil Application NO. 29876 of 2007 dated 14th August, 2008, set aside ex parte award and directed labour court to decide reference on merits on or before 31st January, 2009. Before labour court, statement of claim was filed by petitioner at Exh. 5 and according to petitioner, he was working for more than five years as permanent employee with respondent employer having daily wage of Rs.53.00. Earlier, first party establishment was running in the name of Arvind & Co. and in the year 1995, name of the establishment was changed as Arvind Rubber Well Control Ltd. Service of petitioner workman was terminated by first party establishment on 21.6.1996 without following due process of law. No compensation and notice pay was paid by employer and his service was orally terminated by employer. Vide Exh. 22, written statement was filed by employer denying averments made by workman in his statement of claim filed by him before labour court. Defence was taken by employer that workman has abandoned job voluntarily and he has given in writing that he is voluntarily leaving job and due to that, all the accounts were settled with workman which fact was not disclosed by workman before labour court in his statement of claim. According to employer, petitioner has obtained good job elsewhere and, therefore, he voluntarily left job and accordingly his amount has been settled and payment has been made to him. Respondent employer has also made clear sta