Hon’ble Mrs. Sangeeta Chandra, J.—Gangol Sahkari Dugdh Utpadak Sangh Ltd., Partapur, Meerut which is a co-operative society governed by the Co-operative Society Act 1965 and the terms and employment of whose employees are governed by the U.P Co-operative Societies Rules 1968 and U.P Co-operative Societies Service Employees Regulations, 1975 has approached this Court challenging an Award passed by the Presiding Officer Labour Court (3) U.P, Meerut dated 25.3.1998 in Adjudication Case No. 46 of 1997, whereby respondent No. 2 has been directed to be reinstated with 50 percent backwages.

2. The facts as mentioned in the Award impugned before this Court are that the respondent No. 2 had filed a claim which after failure of conciliation proceedings was forwarded for adjudication by the Deputy Labour Commissioner vide reference in CP Case No. 49 of 1989 dated 14.5.1991 under Section 4(K) of the U.P Industrial Disputes Act on which an adjudication Case No. 46 of 1991 was registered. The respondent No. 2 in his written statement had averred that the employer had a Dairy industry in which a sufficient number of workman are engaged and it is running a chilling plant at Sardhana, Meerut. The management of the Sardhana Plant is by the staff of PCDF and respondent No. 2 was engaged as dairy-man on 3.10.1987 by the then management and he continued to work till 4.7.1988, during which period his work and conduct remained satisfactory. On 4.7.1988, his services were orally terminated by the then Supervisor without any disciplinary proceedings being conducted and without any opportunity of hearing to him. Since then the respondent No. 2 had tried to obtain alternative employment, but had remained unemployed and had prayed for reinstatement with continuity in service and full backwages.

3. The respondent No. 1 to the claim petition the Pradeshik Co-operative Dairy Federation (PCDF) in its written statement had stated that the respondent No. 2 was never engaged by it and he was not its employee and there is no relationship of employer and employee between it and the respondent No. 2 therefore, there is no question of his services being wrongly terminated by PCDF. It was disputed that (PCDF) was running the chilling plant at Sardhana, Meerut as alleged by the workman.

4. The respondent No. 2 to the claim petition, who is the petitioner herein, submitted a written statement, an additional written statement and an amended written statement, and the claim of the workman was disputed that his services were wrongly terminated on 4.7.1988. It was also disputed that the workman had completed 240 days in a calendar year. According to the petitioner he had only completed 187 days and left work under the employers in March 1988 on his own and did not come back.

5. The Labour Court after taking evidence come to the conclusion that the workman was employed by the Gangol Sahkari Dugdh Utpadak Sahkari Sangh Co-operative Society and not by the U.P Co-operative Dairy Federation. With regard to calculation of 240 days, the workman had produced documentary evidence of wage bills which could not be disputed by the employers’ witnesses which included wage bills of October 1987 to March-April 1988 and thereafter of June 1988. The workman had made a statement that although he had worked in May 1988 also, he could not submit the copies of wage bills because they were destroyed by the employers’ witnesses.

Even though in the written statement filed by the Co-operative Society they had admitted that the workman was working as dairy man on the chilling plant, the defence witnesses had submitted in their oral evidence that the dairy man was never employed by the chilling plant directly, but was employed through the contractor. The Labour Court drew an inference that when the defence witnesses were so easily belying the written statement of the management, of the workman being employed under them, they could also have malafidely removed extracts from the attendance re