I.S. Tiwana, J. - (1.) LEARNED Counsel for the parties are agreed that in view of the identity of facts and the contentions raised therein these four Civil Writ Petitions Nos. 3885, 3922, 3923 and 4028 of 1988 can conveniently be disposed of together. They are further agreed that for this purpose the facts stated in C.W.P. No. 3885 may be taken as fairly representative of the case of the other Petitioners.
(2.) THE three Petitioners in this petition were initially employed as Management Trainees by the Respondent Federation. Later, two of them, i.e., Nos. 2 and 3, became full -fledged Managers, while No. 1 still continued to work as Trainee incharge (Procurement and Inputs), Milk Union, Rohtak. They have two/three years service to their credit. Now they have gone out of service on account of abolition of their posts. To impugn the termination of their services, their Learned Counsel Mr. J.L. Gupta, Senior Advocate, has raised these three principal contentions: (i) The resolution of the Federation, dated May 4, 1988, abolishing certain number of posts and more particularly those of the Petitioners, lacks bona fides. (ii) The Federation had no legal authority to abolish the posts and declare the services of the Petitioners as surplus. This is more so in the light of the Directive Principles enshrined in Articles 38, 41 and 43 of the Constitution of India. (iii) The abolition of the posts of the Petitioners is violative of Section 37 of the Haryana Cooperative Societies Act, 1984 as on prior permission of the Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Haryana was obtained to delete the class of employees like the Petitioners from me common cadre. As against this, the stand of the Respondents, i.e. Haryana Dairy Development Cooperative Federation Limited and the Registrar, Cooperative Societies, Haryana, who filed a joint written statement, is, in their own words, as follows: The answering Federation incurred the accumulated losses of roughly about 27 crores of rupees as on June 30, 1987. (Copy of the balance -sheet is Annexure Rule 3 to the reply)., The Federation, therefore) thought of taking measures to restrict their working to minimise the loss and to retrench the unnecessary staff which has been actually retrenched keeping its own working load. This retrenchment of the staff was necessary so that further losses are not incurred. The Federation, therefore, abolished certain jobs including the jobs of the 3 Petitioners. Their services were terminated and they were given one month's salary in lieu of notice as provided in the terms of agreement. ...They were junior most officers in the Federation. ...Not only the services of these three Petitioners have' been terminated, besides services of 33 more employees have' also been terminated. The process of terminating the services of others besides the above 36 employees continues. The Board actually came to the conclusion that over six hundred workers/supervisors can be retrenched being surplus. The steps to complete the process will definitely take further time. ...As a part of better management, steps are underway to reduce the surplus staff. In order to establish its bona fides, the Federation has further pleaded: Keeping in view the accumulated losses as evident from the balance sheet, economy measures were taken in order to relieve the Federation from the debt trap. An agenda was placed before the Board of Directors' in the -meeting held on 4th May, 1988 where it was made -clear -that total requirement of the staff at present was 1494 and already there was a strength of 1725 employees. Surplus deficit staff to the extent of 636 and 405 respective after making adjustment, surplus staff remained around 250 only. ... ... ... The services of the employees were terminated strictly in accordance with law laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court 'last come -first go' and the posts of Management Trainees as already stated above were abolished as an economy measure in the bona fide belief. In order to meet the challenge on the basis of Section 37 of the Cooperative Societies Act, it is stated that as abolition of posts has not led to defection of any class of classes of employees, there is no violation of the Section involved. There are many posts of Managers (Sales) against which senior incumbents to the writ Petitioner are holding charge and have been retained.
(3.) THIS stand of the Respondents appears to be wholly truthful and finds enough of support from the facts pleaded in the petition itself. Some of these are the Respondent Federation also went on Suffering losses, an approximate details of which from the year 1985 -86 is as follows: JUDGEMENT_98_LAWS(P&H)8_1990.htm Ultimately the learned Managing Director drafted an agenda for putting it up in the meeting of Board of Directors with a fatal suggestion for removal of about 700 employees out of the total strength of about 1,700 employees. This agenda item was prepared for putting it up in the meeting of Board of Directors, held on 4th May, 1988, -vide Agenda Item No. 1062/67/88. The meeting of the Board of Directors of the Respondent Federation has taken place on 4th May, 1988, and by accepting the agenda Item Annexure P. 5, it has been, resolved to terminate the services of all those employees suggested in Agenda Annexure P. 5 by abolishing their posts.;