Point of Law: Section 2-A of Act reads as dismissal, etc., of an individual workman to be deemed to be an industrial dispute.

JUDGMENT :

Tarlok Singh Chauhan, J.

Notice. Mr. Dhananjay Sharma, Advocate, appears and waives service of notice on behalf of the respondents.

2. The petitioner claims to have worked with the respondents on daily wage basis with effect from 1993 to 1994 when his services came to be terminated. No steps were taken by the petitioner to assail the termination order and it is only somewhere in the year 2018 that the petitioner approached the Labour Commissioner for referring the dispute to the Court. However, the said request was declined by the Labour Commissioner, constraining the petitioner to file an application under Section 2-A (2) of the Industrial Disputes (Amendment) Act, 2010 before the Presiding Judge, H.P. Industrial Tribunal-cumLabour Court, Shimla, (for short ‘Tribunal’), wherein he prayed for the following relief:

“It is therefore respectfully prayed that directions may kindly be issued to the respondents to re-instate the claimant in service along-with all consequential benefits/relief(s) of back-wages, seniority, continuity and regularization of service and the cost of the petition may kindly be awarded in favour of the claimant in the interest of law and justice.”

3. The petition was contested by the respondents by filing reply wherein preliminary objections regarding no cause of action, petitioner having not approached the Court with clean hands and there being no industrial dispute, were raised. On merits, it was averred that the petitioner was engaged as a casual labour by the respondents from 21.08.1993 to 20.10.1994, whereafter, the petitioner left the job on his own sweet will and had even otherwise not completed 240 days in a year. The services of the petitioner were never terminated, but the petitioner himself had abandoned the job and never turned back and therefore, the question of violation of the provisions of Section 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, (for short ‘Act’) does not arise.

4. The learned Tribunal on 07.04.2022 framed the following issues:

“1. Whether the termination of the services of the petitioner by the respondent without complying with the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 is illegal and unjustified as alleged? If so what relief of service benefits the petitioner is entitled to? OPP.

2. Whether the claim petition filed by the petitioner is neither competent nor maintainable in the present form, as alleged? OPR.

3. Relief.”

5. The learned Tribunal considered the matter in detail and eventually dismissed the petition by holding that since the petitioner had directly approached the Court after expiry of 24 years from the date of his termination, therefore, the claim was not maintainable and as such the petitioner was not entitled to any relief.

6. Aggrieved by the award, the petitioner has filed the instant petition for grant of the following substantive reliefs:

“(i) That the impugned Annexure P1, dated 2nd January, 2023, the award passed by the learned Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court, Shimla, may kindly be set-aside;

(ii) That the respondent-Board may kindly be directed to reinstate/re-engage the petitioner in services with effect from the year 1994 and to regularize the services of the petitioner with all consequential benefits; or in the alternative;

(iii) The case of the petitioner may kindly be remanded back to the learned Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court, Shimla for its adjudication on merits.”

7. We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the records of the case.

8. Section 2-A of the Act reads as under:

“2-A. Dismissal, etc., of an individual workman to be deemed to be an industrial dispute.- [(1)]Where any employer discharges, dismisses, retrenches, or otherwise terminates the services of an individual workman, any dispute or difference between that workman and his employer connected with, or arising out of, such discharge, dismissal, retrenchment or termination shall be deemed to be an industrial dispute notwithstanding that no oth