The presumption of service of notice under Section 27 of the General Clauses Act is rebuttable and does not apply when the addressee specifically denies receipt of a registered notice.

K.Kannan, J.

1. The writ petition challenges the ex parte award passed by the Labour Court. The Labour Court had set the management ex parte on a finding that several notices issued through Registered Post had not been returned served or otherwise and proceeded to pass an award after examination of the workman alone. The award had been passed on 28.01.1997 and only when the award was put in execution, the objection came from the management that they had not been served and an application had been filed for setting aside the ex parte award on 31.03.2000. The Labour Court found that the award had in the meanwhile been notified in the gazette of the court and had become functus officio. The writ petition came to be filed under the circumstances by the management stating that they had not been served with notice in the proceeding before the Labour Court. To substantiate further that even the address mentioned in the summons was not correct, the management wanted to contend that correct address was C-138, Focal Point, Phase V, Ludhiana, while what was stated in the Court notice was without reference to the phase number. An Advocate Commissioner had been appointed by this Court to determine whether there were any other premises answering the same description of door number C-138 in Focal Point, Ludhiana. The Commissioner found that there was no other Phase except Phase-5 which had C-138. The Commissioner had also indicated in the report that the conduct of the persons representing the management was deprecatory.

2. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner-management states that there had been no proof at all for actual service of notice from the Labour Court. I have gone through the file of the Labour Court and I find that there is no postal acknowledgment or any notice evidencing that there had been actual service. Learned counsel appearing for the workman, however, contends that a notice, if it is sent by registered post, there shall be a presumption of service of notice and refers to a decision of the Honble Supreme Court in Attabira Regulated Market Committee v. Ganesh Rice Mills, (1996) 9 SCC 471. The Honble Supreme Court was dealing with the general presumption of law available under Section 27 of the General Clauses Act that when neither acknowledgment nor unserved envelope had been received back, the notice could be deemed to be served. In my view, this decision does not lend support to a proposition that in all cases where notice is not shown to have been actually served, the matter of presumption would extend to an extent that it could be used to defeat the claims of a person who contends specifically that notice was not served. Any presumption in the very nature of things only gives rise to a certain inference of facts which can be shown to be not correct. It is never inviolable. The Honble Supreme Court itself has observed in Puwada Venkateswara Rao v. Chidamana Venkatoramana, 1976(*) R.C.R.(Rent) 439 : (1976) 2 SCC 409, that the presumption that is available under Section 27 of General Clauses Act will not apply when the addressee specifically denies receipt of a registered notice. The onus of proof in such case is indeed a light one. If a person complains that a registered notice was not served, the person who seeks to avail to himself the presumption must then prove that there had been actual service. Evidently there had been no definite evidence available and the Labour Court itself could not have gone to the issue at any length, in view of the fact that the award had been published in the gazette and the Labour Court did not have the jurisdiction to reopen the issue. A pure question of fact whether there had been due service or not is not a subject that could be undertaken in this jurisdiction in favour of the person who contends that there had been actual service. As I have already observed, the presumption under Section 27 is always rebuttable and when it was rebutted, in the absence of any material th