MOINUDDIN Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The main question which is required to be determined in these writ petitions is as to whether the pasting of a notice on the notice board directing. the workman, whose service has been terminated, to collect his wages from the office of the employer would amount to sufficient compliance with the provisions; of Section 25F (b) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (hereinafter called "the Act") As the same question has been raised in all these writ petitions, it would be proper to dispose them of by a common order.

(2.) The facts which have given rise to these writ petitions are short and simple. The petitioners were posted as Class IV employees in the Loco Shed at Ranapratapnagar railway station of the Western Railway as substitute workmen. The Loco Foreman, Western Railway, Ranapratapnagar railway station, issued notices to the petitioners in March and April, 1975, intimating them that their services shall stand terminated on the expiry of a notice period of one month. The reason for the termination of the service of the petitioners as substitutes was given by the Loco Foreman as 'reduction in cadre'. The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners is that retrenchment compensation, within the meaning of Section 25F (b) of the Act, was neither paid nor even offered to be paid to the petitioners at the time of their retrenchment and on this ground it was urged that the termination of the services of the petitioners was illegal and void, being in derogation of the provisions of Section 25F of the Act. The case of the respondents in this respect is that at the time when the notices relating to termination of services were given to the petitioners, the Loco Foreman had asked each one of the petitioners to collect the amount of retrenchment compensation from the office before the expiry of the notice period. But as the petitioners did not turn up to receive the retrenchment compensation, a notice was pasted on the notice board on April 18, 1975, stating the amount, which was payable to each one of the employees by way of compensation under the Act, shall be paid on the date of termination of service, through Emergent Pay Sheets. In that notice the amount payable to each one of the petitioners by way of retrenchment compensation was separately mentioned against the name of that person. According to the respondants, the petitioners deliberately reported sick and did not turn up for receiving the amount of retrenchment the compensation or. even the wages which had become due, in spite of the fact that the said amount was available for payment to them. Thus the case of the respondents is that the pasting of the notice Annexure R/5 on the notice board along with the oral intimation said to have been given by the Loco Foreman to the petitioners, at the time of handing over to them the notices of termination, was sufficient in law to amount to an offer and that the same should be deemed to be sufficient compliance of the provisions of Section 25-F (b) of the Act.

(3.) Learned counsel for the respondents also raised a preliminary objection that the writ petitions were not maintainable as the only grievance advanced by the petitioners related to the alleged violation of a right, which was the creation of the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act, and the ordinary remedy provided in the Act for redress ot such a grievance should have been availed of by the petitioners instead of approaching this Court by way of writ petitions. There is no doubt that the claim of the petitioners is based on the alleged violation of the provisions of Section 25-F (b) of the Act and it has been argued on their behalf that the termination of the services of the petitioners should be set aside for the noncompliance of the provisions of Section 25F of the Act. It is also true that the Act provides remedies for redressing the non-compliance or violation of the provisions of the Act. It is no doubt undisputable that there is no right available to the petitioners to obtain retrenchment compensation from the employer, in the ordinary or common law. It is a special right which has been created by the provisions of Section 25F of the Act and in the absence of such provisions or if such provisions would not have been applicable to the petitioners, then the petitioners would not have been entitled to the payment of the amount claimed by them by way of retrenchment compensation. Thus, when a special right has been created by a statute, then ordinarily the remedy provided in that statute for the redress or the non-fulfilment of the right should be followed, rather than filing a Civil Suit or approaching this Court by way of a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution. In the face of the specific legal remedy available to the petitioner? under Section 10 of the Act, the extraordinary jurisdiction of this Court should not ordinarily be invoked.