Honble TIBREWAL, J. – In this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner challenges the legality of the Award dated, August 24, 1994, passed by Labour Court, Bharatpur, whereby termination of the workmen, namely, Shamsher, Kamlesh, Kamal Singh and Dhruv Singh was held to be invalid for non-compliance of the provisions of Sec. 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (hereinafter to be referred to as `the Act).

(2) The claim of the workmen was based on the facts that they were in employment of the petitioner, working in Irrigation Department, Dholpur Division, from January 1, 1978 and their services were terminated without making compliance of Sec. 25-f and 25-G of the Act, in as much as, they were neither given one months notice in writing nor paid wages for the period of notice and retrenchment, compensation. They also pleaded that the employer did not publish seniority list to show that they were the last persons to be employed in their category. The dispute raised by the workmen was referred to the Labour Court under Section 10(1) of the Act. The employer denied claim of the workmen in their reply and further pleaded inter-alia that the workmen were employed under `Rojgar Guarantee Yojna for a specified period and they were informed about this fact at the time of their employment.

(3) After recording evidence of the parties, the Labour Court accepted the claim of the workmen that they were employed by the employer as Beldar/labourer on 1.1.78 and they were in service, till their termination was made on 16.9.87. The Labour Court, on the basis of evidence of the parties, has recorded a finding that the workmen were in continuous service from 1978 to 1985 and they worked for more than 240 days in every year except the last calendar year. With the above findings, the court held that there was non-compliance of Sec. 25-F of the Act. It was also held that it was not necessary for the workmen to establish to have worked for 240 days in all the years they served with the employer.

(4) The above findings of the Labour Court are based on proper appreciation of evidence and the learned counsel could not point out any infirmity or error on face of the record to vitiate the same. For the years 1978 to 1985, the Labour Court also took into consideration the fact of non-production of Muster-Rolls and Pay- Vouchers by the employer. The employers failure to produce the relevant documents to controvert workmens claim for the period and number of days they actually worked, was rightly considered to draw inference of the correctness of their claim. The finding of the Labour Court that the workmen had worked continu ously for the years 1978 to 1985 cannot be said to be erroneous.

(5) Faced with the above situation, the learned counsel appearing for the petitioner considered it proper not to challenge the above findings arrived at by the Labour Court and they restricted their contention on a legal question that for attracting the provisions of Sec. 25-F, it was necessary for the workmen to have worked for 240 days in all the years including the last year of their service. In other words, the contention of the learned counsel is that the workmen did not actually work for 240 days in the last calendar year of their service, compliance of the conditions laid down in Sec. 25-F was not necessary for retrenchment/termination of their service.

(6) It is not disputed before me that termination of service of the workmen is retrenchment for the purposes of Sec. 25-F. The only question, therefore, requires of consideration in this petition is : Whether termination of the workmen stands vitiated for non-compliance of Sec. 25-F read with Sec. 25-B of the Act?

It would be convenient to set-out Sec. 25-F to understand the controversy involved in the matter. Section 25-F and Section 25-B are incorporated in Chapter-VA dealing with lay-off and retrenchment. Section 25-F runs as under :–

"S. 25-F. Conditions precedent to retrenchment of wor

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