The termination of an employee's service without providing an opportunity to be heard and without conducting a domestic inquiry is violative of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India.

1. - This D.B. Special Appeal filed under Section 18 of the Rajasthan High Court Ordinance. 1949, arising out of S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 959/79, is directed against the judgment of the learned Single Judge of this Court dated 28th October, 1956 by which the learned Single Judge had dismissed the writ petition filed by the appellant-petitioner against the respondents. By the impugned award of the Judge, Labour Court. Jaipur, which was the subject-matter of the writ petition before the learned Single Judge. The Labour Court had held that the termination of the services of Kamal Kishore, respondent No. 2 is illegal and void and that he was entitled to reinstatement in service with full hack wages. The learned Single Judge had further made a direction that with regard to the back wages payable to respondent No. 2, the appellant-Board will pay interest at the rate of 12% per annum from the date of award to respondent No. 2.

2. The facts giving rise to the tiling of this appeal, briefly stated,are that the respondent No. 2 was appointed as work-charged Helper on March 9, 1965 and was working in that capacity when he absented himself without leave from May 20, 1974. The respondent No. 2 was absent for a period of about 41/2 months and did not send any intimation or any information to the Appellant-Board or its officers regarding his absence and the cause for his absence till October 3, 1974.

3. The appellant-Board, therefore, considered the respondent No. 2 to be absent from duty without sanctioned leave and according to the provisions of proviso to Order 9(j) of the Certified Standing Orders, the services of respondent No. 2 were treated to have come to an end for being absent from duty without any intimation for more than 8 days. The respondent No. 2 had submitted two medical Certificates on October 3, 1974 in the office of Assistant Engineer along-with the joining report. Since the service of the respondent No. 2 stood terminated in accordance with Order 9(j) of the Certified Standing Orders of the Board, as referred to above, the respondent No. 2 was accordingly not taken back on duty. Consequently respondent No. 2 raised an industrial dispute which was referred to respondent No. 1 i.e. Judge Labour Court, Jaipur for adjudication. The Judge, Labour Court, Jaipur passed an award in favour of respondent No. 2 on September 4, 1979 which was challenged in the writ petition filed by the appellant-Board in Writ Petition No. 959/79. During the pendency of the writ petition, the learned Single Judge had passed an interim order whereby the operation of the award, so far as it related to payment of back wages, was stayed but the appellant- Board was directed to reinstate the respondent-workman with back wages to which he was entitled as if the order of termination was not passed. In accordance with the interim-order the petitioner-Board has reinstated the respondent-workman.

4. Being aggrieved by the impugned judgment of the learned single Judge, the appellant-Board has come up in appeal.

5. The contention advanced by the learned counsel for the appellant is that me learned Single Judge had failed to take into consideration that once the services of the employee stood validly terminated by operation of law, he is not entitled to reinstatement with full back-wages. In this connection reliance was placed by the learned counsel for the appellant on the provisions of Order 9(j) of the Certified Standing Orders of the Board Which provides as under-

"If a worker absents himself tor more than 8 consecutive days without leave, he shall be deemed to have left the service of the Board without notice."

6. It has been further observed in the appeal that the appellant- Board did not pass any termination order but simply informed respondent No. 2 regarding his automatic termination in accordance with Certified Standing Order No. 9(j), as referred to above, hence this case was wrongly treated to be of retrenchment of the workman under the I.D. Ac