Dismissed

Mgt.of Exe.Engineer v. Dillip Ku.Biswal

Orissa HC24 Sept 2021WP(C)/21557/2014

Case brief

AI extract

What is this about?

This Court dismissed a writ petition challenging a Labour Court Award that granted continuity of service and back wages for illegally retrenched workmen. The Court rejected the plea that recent Supreme Court principles allow lump-sum compensation instead of reinstatement, holding such principles do not apply when reinstatement has already been effected by the management. Consequently, no ground wa

What did the court decide?

The writ petition was dismissed; the Labour Court Award was upheld.

Mgt.of Exe.Engineer Vs Dillip Ku.Biswal — Labour and Industrial Disputes | Orissa HC (2021)

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IN THE HIGH COURT OF ORISSA AT CUTTACK

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W.P.(C) No.21557 of 2014

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The Management of Executive Engineer, Quality Control Division, Jobra, Cuttack

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…. Petitioner Mr. P.K. Muduli, AGA

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-versus-

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… Opposite Parties Ms. Swetlana Das, Advocate

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Dillip Kumar Biswal and others

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CORAM:

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THE CHIEF JUSTICE JUSTICE B. P. ROUTRAY

ORDER

Order No.

24.09.2021

The present petition by the Executive Engineer, Quality 1 Control Division at Jobra at Cuttack challenges the Award dated 7^th December, 2012 passed by the Labour Court, Bhubaneswar in I.D. Case No.95 of 2011 holding that the retrenchment of the Opposite Parties-workmen on two dates i.e. 1^st December, 2001 and 16^th February, 2002 was illegal and contrary to Section 25(F) of the Industrial Disputes Act,1947 (I.D. Act). The Award has further directed that the said workmen will be accorded continuity in service and all service benefits with back wages.

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It appears that during the pendency of the proceedings in the Labour Court, all the workmen were reinstated with effect from 10^th December, 2007. This has been noted by the Labour Court in para-11 of the impugned award. Accordingly, the Labour Court observed that “at present it is not wise to direct the management

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for their reinstatement in service”. Nevertheless, the Labour Court held that the workmen were entitled to get full wages from the date of their illegal retrenchment till the date of re-engagement with continuity of service and all service benefits. Further the management has been given liberty “to realize the compensation amount from the workmen at the time of payment of their back wages, if the same has not been realized earlier”.

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Mr. Muduli sought to contend that since the workmen had not proved that they had not been engaged gainfully during the period that they were out of service, the Labour Court was not justified in directing back wages to be paid for the entire period that they were out of service. He sought to rely on the decision in Executive Engineer, Camps & Buildings Division, Samal v. Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Bhubaneswar 2006 (II) OLR-216 .

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Having examined the said decision, the Court finds that it was an entirely different sets of facts. There the employee was imprisoned on criminal charges. The observation to the effect that he had not placed materials to show that he had not been gainfully engaged was made in the passing. The main finding was that the employee had not placed any material to show that he had been prevented from reporting for duty after his release from jail.

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Mr. Muduli then relies on the judgment dated 20^th September, 2021 of the Supreme Court of India in Civil Appeal arising out of Special Leave Petition (C) No.19648 of 2019 ( Allahabad Bank v. Krishan Pal Singh ), which holds that reinstatement with full back

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wages need not be the norm and that instead of reinstatement, the ends of justice would be met by awarding lump sum monetary compensation. He adds that some of the workmen have attained the age of superannuation by now and therefore need not be paid the full wages due under the Award.

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The above decision does not help the case of the Petitioner here since by a policy decision the Petitioner decided to reinstate all the workmen in December, 2007. In other words, this is not a case where the Award was resisted by claiming that there should be no reinstatement but only compensation in lieu of reinstatement. The above decision cannot be said to be laying down the corollary of its ratio as well viz., that where there is reinstatement, no back wages need be awarded.

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For the aforesaid reasons, this Court finds no ground made out to interfere with the impugned Award of the Labour Court. The Petition is dismissed.

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(Dr. S. Muralidhar) Chief Justice

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( B.P. Routray) Judge

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C.R. Biswal

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Mgt.of Exe.Engineer v. Dillip Ku.Biswal

Case brief

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Mgt.of Exe.Engineer v. Dillip Ku.Biswal

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