The court upheld the Tribunal's finding that the workman abandoned his employment rather than being wrongfully terminated, due to insufficient evidence supporting his claims.

JUDGMENT

Mr. Sanjay Vashisth, J. ( Oral)

Petitioner - Budh Singh, has filed the present writ petition, assailing the award dated 16.10.1996 (Annexure P-7), passed by the Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court-I, Faridabad (in short, 'learned Tribunal'), vide which, Reference No.543 of 1987, under Section 10(1)(C) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (for brevity, 'ID Act'), has been answered against him.

2. Pleaded case of the workman is that he was employed with respondent No.2 i.e. M/s Micro Grain Steel, Plot No.97, Sector 24, Faridabad, on 01.08.1986, as a skilled workman with a salary of Rs. 800 p.m. His services were terminated on 15.09.1987, and immediately thereafter, on 17.09.1987, workman got served the demand notice upon the respondent - Management, asking therein for reinstatement in service along with back-wages. Thus, the workman claimed that his termination from service is in violation of the ID Act.

3. In the written statement filed by respondent No.2 - Management, employment of the workman had been admitted by stating that actually, he joined service on 29.04.1987 and not on 01.08.1986 and workman never came back on duty after 30.08.1987. Further pleaded that an amount of Rs. 2, 000/- had been taken by him as advance, and therefore, he stopped coming to the factory from 30th August, 1987. Thus, as per the stand of the Management, it is a case of abandonment from service, not the termination.

4. After taking note of the stand taken by the parties, and examining the relevant material and evidence available on record, learned Tribunal recorded its finding, which is reproduced here-under:-

" It has been argued that the workman had made request on 1.2.1993 for summoning an expert witness and that his request was declined by the then Presiding Officer and that now the disputed signatures may be compared with the admitted signatures by the Court itself. The point has already been discussed above. The repetition would be unnecessary.

Mohan Gupta, the Factory Manager of the respondent has stated that the claimant was recruited on 29.4.1987. However, there is no attendance or name of the claimant for 29.4.1987 or 30.4.1987. It has been argued that Mohan Gupta has told a lie. The record shows that his name was entered from first of May, 1987. It is no matter that the claimant worked for two last days for the month and his name was not entered. May be that it was a trial for him. It has specifically been so stated by Mohan Gupta that he had joined on trial.

The case of the management is that they have written two letters to the workman, one on 5.9.1987 and other on 10.9.1987. The claimant has denied to have received these letters. Then there is 3rd letter dated 18.9.1987 it is Ex.M-13 on record. The earlier two letters M-9 and M-11 had not been referred in this 3rd letter. It has been argued that since the 3rd letter does not refer to the first two letters so it may be presumed that first two letters were forged. The non-mentioning of the earlier letters in a later letter in itself does not prove the earlier letters to be forged documents. If there is a specific allegation of forgery and it is proved through an independent evidence then this omission may be a factory which may be added to the evidence of forgery. Earlier while discussing omission of M-1, letter of appointment in the demand notice, I had drawn that inference that letter M-1 might have been forged by that time. I have so held because there is other overwhelming independent evidence of the forgery M-1. The omission of these two letters M-9 and M-11 in the contents of M-13 cannot be equated with the omission of reference of M-1 in the demand notice.

The case of the management is that the workman had not come on work after 30.8.1987. However, claimant stated that he worked up to 14.9.1987. The claimant has been paid the wages for 14 days of September, 1987 through the Authorities under the Payment of Wages Act. I cannot go by what had been led there. I have to see wha