- (1.) Respondent corporation, having failed to defend its action of terminating petitioner, while he was posted at Mathura, right upto the Apex Court, has passed the orders impugned, requiring petitioner to report at Vadodara, Gujarat, for being reinstated in service and to furnish details of his activity while he remained out of employment, failing which a presumption would be raised that he was gainfully employed. Petitioner asserts that piqued at having lost legal battle upto the Apex Court, the employer is devising newer methods of harassment and victimization, by requiring petitioner to report for reinstatement at a distance of a thousand kilometers, which in the facts and circumstances suffers from the vice of malice in law and in fact.
(2.) Facts in brief, which give cause for filing of the present writ petition, are that petitioner was initially appointed as Electrician Grade-III with the Indian Oil Corporation (hereinafter referred to as the 'Corporation') vide order dated 21.4.1986. Admittedly, petitioner joined on the post on 25.9.1986. He was terminated from service vide modal standing order dated 26.4.1989, treating him to be on probation. Petitioner filed a Writ Petition No.8502 of 1989. This Court speaking through the judgment dated 1.12.2006 opined that as the maximum period permissible under the standing orders for an employee to be kept on probation had already expired, as such, he would be deemed to be confirmed in the employment. Since no procedure was followed before terminating the service of petitioner, as such, the writ petition was allowed and the order dated 26.4.1989, contained in Annexure-3 to the writ petition was quashed. Liberty, however, was granted to the respondents to pass a fresh order if they so desire, in accordance with law. The judgment dated 1.12.2006 was challenged by the respondent corporation by filing Special Appeal No.19 of 2007. The appeal by an elaborate order was dismissed on 17.9.2014. Operative portion of the order passed in Special Appeal No.19 of 2007 is reproduced:- "As such, we are of the opinion that even though the reasons given by the learned Single Judge for treating the writ petitioner as a permanent employee may be different from one which have been given hereinabove, but in the facts of the present case, the writ petitioner could not be treated as a probationer after having put in more than two years of service, and his service could not have been terminated without assigning any reasons, treating him to be a probationer, as has been done by the order dated 26.4.1989. As we have already held, in the facts of the present case and in terms of the model Standing Orders, the writ petitioner had automatically been confirmed, and would be treated as permanent workman on the completion of three months service in the year 1986 itself and thus, the termination simplicitor, treating the writ petitioner to be a probationer, vide order dated 26.4.1989 has rightly been quashed by the learned Single Judge, which does not call for interference in this appeal.
(3.) The special appeal stands dismissed. No order as to costs. ";