Brijesh Kumar, J. - (1.) This bunch of writ petitions relates to the service matter of the employees of different co-operative institutions. Most of the petitions have been filed by the employees of the U.P. Co-operative Processing and Cold Storage Federation Ltd. and .some relate to the employees of the U.P. Co-operative Bank and U. P. Co-operative Federation. One another petition relates to an employee of Hardoi, District Co-operative Bank, Hardoi. There are some questions which are common in all the writ petitions and decisions on those points may help in disposing of all the petitions in this bunch. In some of the writ petitions, orders of termination of the employees of the Societies have been challenged and in some of the petitions, a grievance has been raised that the Society concerned wrongly refused to extend the appointments of the employees which came to an end and it amounted to retrenchment. It appears that the petitioners in different petitions were initially appointed on daily wages and thereafter they were given ad-hoc appointments for three months which was being extended from time to time for a further period of three months or 89 days. On expiry of the period of appointment, fresh appointment letters were being issued after a break of two or three days or in some cases, for a longer period, say five to ten days. These employees, however, continued to work for two-three years or more.
(2.) The case of the employees is that since they had completed more than 240 days in one calendar year, they had at-least one year or more continuous service to their credit and their discontinuance or termination, as the case may be, amounted to retrenchment under the Industrial Disputes Act. The retrenchment could not be resorted to without complying with the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act providing for payment of retrenchment compensation etc. Admittedly no retrenchment compensation was paid by the respective employer Societies.
(3.) The main defence of the employer Societies is that the employees did not complete one year's continuous service in the establishment as there had been breaks in their services and that the appointments were for a fixed term which had come to an end on expiry of specified period. Therefore, they were not entitled for the benefit of retrenchment compensation etc., as provided under the Industrial Disputes Act. Another plea raised is that under Regulation 5 of the U. P. Co-operative Societies Employees' Service Regulations, 1975, the appointments had to be made only through the Co operative Institutional Service Board. Even ad-hoc appointments could continue only for a specified period; thereafter it would cease to be operative in terms of the provisions contained in Regulation 5 of the U. P. Co-operative Societies Employees' Service Regulations, 1975. Undisputedly the appointments were not made through the Institutional Service Board and they continued in service against the provisions of Employees Service Regulations, 1975; therefore, the employees could not claim any retrench rent compensation or benefit under the Industrial Disputes Act. It was also argued that since the appointments had come to an end on expiry of a fixed term, the same could not be covered by the definition of the word 'retrenchment1 as provided under Section 2 (oo) of the Industrial Disputes Act (Central).;