NON-REPORTABLE

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CIVIL APPEAL NO. 3815 OF 2010 (Arising out of SLP(C) No. 13994 of 2006)

Senior Superintendent Telegraph (Traffic) Bhopal    …Appellant

Versus   Santosh Kumar Seal and Ors.                           …Respondents

JUDGEMENT

R.M. Lodha, J.

Leave granted.

2. The main question is whether relief of reinstatement  

and back wages granted to respondent nos. 1 to 14 (for short,  

‘the workmen’) is justified.   The facts leading up to this appeal  

by  special  leave  are  few  and  simple.   The  workmen  were  

enrolled with the District Employment Exchange, Bhopal.  On a  

requisition  made  by  the  Sr.  Superintendent  of  Telegraph  

(Traffic) to the District Employment Exchange, the names of the

workmen were sponsored and they were engaged as casual  

labourers  in  1985  in  Central  Telegraph  Office  /  District  

Telegraph  Office,  Bhopal.   They  continued  as  such  upto  

February  10,  1987.  During  this  period,  the  workmen  had  

completed 240 days in each year.  Vide order dated February  

10, 1987, the services of the workmen were discontinued in the  

Central  Telegraph Office /  District  Telegraph Office and they  

were asked to report in the office of A.E. (Cables) CTX, Bhopal.  

The case of the workmen is that they reported in the office of  

A.E. (Cables) CTX, Bhopal but they were not taken on duty on  

the pretext that there were no vacancies. On the other hand,  

the appellant claims that the workmen did not report for duty in  

the office of  the  A.E.  (Cables)  CTX,  Bhopal  and abandoned  

their  job.  The  workmen  initially  approached  Central  

Administrative  Tribunal  and  then  High  Court  for  redressal  of  

their  grievance  but  no  relief  was  granted  to  them  as  the  

controversy  related  to  industrial  dispute.  The  workmen,  

consequently, raised industrial  dispute which was referred by  

the  appropriate  government  for  adjudication  to  the  Central  

Government  Industrial  Tribunal  (for  short,  ‘Tribunal’).   The  

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Tribunal on the basis of the case set up by the parties and the  

evidence on record held that the workmen had worked for more  

than  240  days  in  a  year  for  nearly  3  years  and  that  their  

services were retrenched by an order dated February 10, 1987  

without following the mandatory provisions of Section 25 F of  

the  Industrial  Disputes  Act,  1947  (for  short,  ‘ID  Act’).   The  

Tribunal did not accept the plea of the appellant that on their  

redeployment,  the  workmen  abandoned  their  service.   The  

Tribunal,  accordingly,  by  its  award  dated  August  8,  2003  

directed the appellant to reinstate the workmen and pay them  

back  wages  from  the  date  of  termination  until  the  date  of  

reinstatement within 3 months of the publication of the award  

and upon appellant’s  failure to  comply with  the award within  

stipulated period, it was directed that interest at the rate of 8 per  

cent per annum shall be payable.  The appellant challenged the  

said award before the High Court by filing writ petition which  

was dismissed on November  9, 2005.  

3. Mr.  R.  D.  Agrawala,  learned  senior  counsel  

submitted that the erstwhile Central Telegraph Office / District  

Telegraph Office,  Bhopal  where the  workmen were engaged  

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was an establishment of the Post and Telegraph Department,  

Government  of  India  and,  therefore,  it  was  not  an  ‘industry’  

under the ID Act.  He, however, did not dispute that this plea  

was not raised by the appellant in reply before the Tribunal.  No  

such point was argued before the Tribunal.  As a matter of fact,  

even before the High Court, no such plea was raised in the writ  

petition  nor  argued  on  behalf  of  the  appellant.   In  the  

circumstances,  we  do  not  deem it  appropriate  to  permit  the  

appellant to raise this plea for the first time in this appeal.  

4. Learned  senior  counsel  for  the  appellant  then  

submitted that vide order dated February 10, 1987, the services  

of the workmen were not terminated but they were redeployed  

in  the  office  of  A.E.  (Cables)  CTX,  Bhopal;  the  workmen,  

however, did not join their duty there and they abandoned their  

service.  The Tribunal referred to the cross-examination of the  

appellant’s witness Shri A.K. Saxena in this regard and did not  

find  any  merit  in  this  submission.  The  High  Court  found  no  

justification to interfere with the said finding of the Tribunal.  We  

have no justifiable reason to take a different view on facts found  

by the Tribunal.   

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5. Lastly, learned senior counsel submitted that even if  

the  order  dated  February  10,  1987  amounts  to  illegal  

termination for want of compliance of Section 25 F of ID Act, in  

the  facts  and  circumstances  of  the  case,  reinstatement  and  

back  wages  was  not  justified  and  at  best  monetary  

compensation to the workmen could have been awarded.   

6. In last few years  it  has been consistently held by  

this Court that relief by way of reinstatement with back wages is  

not automatic even if termination of an employee is found to be  

illegal  or is in contravention of the prescribed procedure and  

that monetary compensation in lieu of reinstatement and back  

wages in cases of such nature may be appropriate, (See U.P.  

State Brassware Corpn. Ltd. & Anr. v. Uday Narain Pandey1;   

Uttaranchal Forest Development Corpn. v. M.C. Joshi2; State of  

M.P.  &  Ors.  v.  Lalit  Kumar  Verma3;  Madhya  Pradesh  

Administration v. Tribhuban4; Sita Ram & Ors. v. Moti Lal Nehru  

Farmers  Training  Institute5;  Jaipur  Development  Authority  v.   

Ramsahai & Anr.6; Ghaziabad Development Authority & Anr. v.   1 (2006) 1 SCC 479 2 (2007) 9 SCC 353 3 (2007) 1 SCC 575 4 (2007) 9 SCC 748 5 (2008) 5 SCC 75 6 (2006) 11 SCC 684

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Ashok  Kumar  &  Anr.7 and  Mahboob  Deepak  v.  Nagar  

Panchayat, Gajraula & Anr.8).  

7. In a recent judgment authored by one of us (R.M.  

Lodha,  J.)  in  the  case  of  Jagbir  Singh v.  Haryana  State  

Agriculture Marketing Board and Anr.9, the aforesaid decisions  

were noticed and it was stated :

“7. It  is  true  that  the  earlier  view  of  this  Court  articulated in many decisions reflected the legal position  that if the termination of an employee was found to be  illegal,  the relief of reinstatement with full  back wages  would ordinarily follow.  However,  in recent past, there  has been a shift in the legal position and in a long line of  cases, this Court has consistently taken the view that  relief  by way of reinstatement with back wages is not  automatic and may be wholly inappropriate in a given  fact  situation  even  though  the  termination  of  an  employee  is  in  contravention  of  the  prescribed  procedure. Compensation instead of reinstatement has  been held to meet the ends of justice.

* * * * * * * * *     *

14. It  would  be,  thus,  seen  that  by  a  catena  of  decisions in recent time, this Court has clearly laid down  that  an  order  of  retrenchment  passed  in  violation  of  Section 25-F although may be set aside but an award of  reinstatement  should  not,  however,  be  automatically  passed.   The  award  of  reinstatement  with  full  back  wages in a case where the workman has completed 240  

7 (2008) 4 SCC 261 8 (2008) 1 SCC 575 9 (2009) 15 SCC 327

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days of work in a year preceding the date of termination,  particularly,  daily  wagers  has  not  been  found  to  be  proper  by  this  Court  and  instead  compensation  has  been awarded. This Court has distinguished between a  daily wager who does not hold a post and a permanent  employee”.

8. In view of the aforesaid legal position and the fact  

that  the  workmen  were  engaged  as  daily  wagers  about  25  

years back and they worked hardly for 2 or 3 years,  relief of  

reinstatement and back wages to them cannot be said to be  

justified and instead monetary compensation would subserve  

the ends of justice. In our considered view, the compensation of  

Rs. 40,000/- to each of the workmen (respondent nos. 1 to 14)  

shall  meet the ends of justice.  We order accordingly.  Such  

payment shall be made within 6 weeks from today failing which  

the  same  shall  carry  interest  at  the  rate  of  9  per  cent  per  

annum.  

9. The appeal is allowed to aforementioned extent with  

no order as to costs.   

…..…….……………..J            (R. V. Raveendran)

…..…….……………..J                  (R. M. Lodha)

New Delhi April  26, 2010.   

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