Retrenchment compensation under section 25F of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 must be paid simultaneously with the termination of service, and subsequent payment cannot validate the termination.

1. - These four writ petitions have been filed in this Court by workmen who were employed as work charge employees in the Irrigation Department of the State of Rajasthan and were working in the Rajasthan Canal Project. As similar questions of law arise in these cases, I propose to dispose them of by a common order.

2. Parumal petitioner in writ petition No. 2070 of 1973 and Benarsilal petitioner in writ petition No. 2072 of 1973 were employed as Fitters in the Rajasthan Canal Project, Mechanical Circle, while Jamna Ram petitioner in civil writ petition No. 2071 of 1973 was employed as a Lineman in the same project. Harbanslal petitioner in writ petition No. 2456 of 1974 was working as a Chargeman (Electrical) in the Rajasthan Canal Project Workshop. All the aforesaid four petitioners were thus work charge employees of the State and were working in the Mechanical Division of the Rajasthan Canal Project and were `workmen' within the definition of section 2(s) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, hereinafter referred to as "the Act", the services of all the four petitioners were dispensed with as they were served with retrechment notices for a period of one month.

3. The petitioners have challenged the termination of their services by means of these writ petitions and one of the principal grounds which has been urged by learned counsel for the petitioner is that the provisions of section 25F of the Act were not complied with by the employer while dispensing with the services of the petitioner. The grievance of these petitioners is that the retrenchment compensation, as specified in section 25F (b) of the Act, was not paid to the petitioners simultaneously with the termination of their services. The services of the petitioners Parumal, Benarsilal and Jamna Ram were dispensed with by retrenchment notices which were served upon them on May 15, 1973. According to the said notices of the retrenchment, the services of the aforesaid three petitioners stood terminated on the expiry of one month, effect from June 14, 1973. However, in the case of Parumal and Benarsilal petitioners the retrenchment compensation was paid on June 16, 1973, while in the case of Jam Ram petitioner the amount of salary was paid on May 15, 1973, while the amount of retrenchment compensation was paid on June 25, 1973. In this respect the case of the respondents is that petitioner Jamna Ram refused to accept the amount of retrenchment compensation while it was offered to him along with the payment of his salary. In respect of all the three aforesaid petitioners the case set up by the respondent State and its others is that the amounts of compensation of the three petitioners were passed for payment on June 14, 1973" It has further been stated that the amount were offered but the petitioners refused to accept it. The reply of the respondents is extremely vague on the question as to when the amount of retrenchment compensation was offered to the three petitioners, but from the wireless message, a copy of which has been produced along with reply in Parumil's case, it appears that the amount of compensation was offered on June 16, 1973. So far as the petitioner Harbanslal is concerned the termination of his service came into effect from May 29, 1973 while the amount of retrenchment compensation was paid to him on May 31, 1973. Thus from the facts stated above, it is quite clear that in the case of the four petitioners the amount of retrenchment compensation was not tendered or paid to any one of them simultaneously with the termination of their services. In case of each one of the petitioners, the retrenchment notice issued for a period of one month in accordance with the provisions of (cl) (a) of section 25F of the Act came to an end prior to the date the amount of retrenchment compensation in accordance with the provisions of clause (b) of section 25F was paid or even tendered to him.

4. Section 25F of the Act requires that in order to bring about a terminati