- (1.) THIS petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is directed against the award dated 1st February, 1994 passed by the Industrial Tribunal, Mumbai, in Reference (II) No. 189 of 1994 directing the petitioner company to reinstate the 1st respondent workman with continuity of service and backwages with effect from 9th June, 1975.
(2.) THIS facts relevant for this judgment may first be set out. The petitioner is a private limited company engaged in the business of manufacture and sale of steel balls for industrial use. The 1st respondent workman was working with the petitioner company as a wireman/electrician. According to the petitioner in the year 1975 there was acute recession and glut in the market for the petitioners products and shortage of power and electrical energy which substantially affected the volume of manufacturing activities and business and rendered a sizeable number of work force surplus to the requirements of the petitioner company. In these compelling circumstances, the petitioner was constrained to take a business decision to reduce the surplus number of workmen from various departments and categories so as to utilise the production facilities and provide man days work to workmen and to thereby overcome the difficult period which the company was passing through during the relevant period. On 9th May, 1975, the petitioner company offered to the workmen a voluntary scheme for seperation with extra monetary benefits. In response to the said scheme, as may as 17 permanent workmen accepted the voluntary seperation scheme.
(3.) IT is further the case of the petitioner that after carefully assessing the impact of the voluntary retirement, the petitioner found the necessity of reduction of some more permanent workmen and accordingly decided to retrench the junior-most workman/electrician in the Electrical department, one junior-most workman from the Heat Treatment department and two junior-most workmen from the Tool Room department. Accordingly on 1st June, 1975, a seniority list of workmen categorywise was put up on the notice board of the petitioners factory in accordance with Rule 81 of the Industrial Disputes (Bombay) Rules, 1957. According to the petitioner company, the 1st respondent who was the juniormost wireman/electrician was retrenched on 9th June, 1975 after being offered a letter of retrenchment accompanied by retrenchment compensation as well as notice pay as required under the provisions of section 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The petitioner maintains that the workman refused to accept the notice, and also refused to accept the retrenchment compensation and notice pay and this was duly recorded by the company. Immediately thereafter the petitioner company by its letter dated 12th June, 1975 recorded the factum of offering to the workman retrenchment compensation as well as notice pay in the presence of two witnesses during his working hours on 9th June, 1975 prior to serving retrenchment order upon him. The said letter was replied to by the workman alleging that his services were terminated as he had decided alongwith other workmen to join the trade union. It was however not alleged or claimed that he was not offered retrenchment compensation and notice pay. The workman raised an industrial dispute which came to be referred to Industrial tribunal pursuant to order passed by this Court in Writ Petition No. 1409 of 1980.;