RAJIV NARAIN RAINA, J. - (1.) THIS Letters Patents Appeal under Clause X of the Letters Patent is directed against the judgment and the order of the learned Single Judge dated 13.10.2009 by which CWP No. 4452 of 2000 was dismissed with Rs.5,000/ - as costs. In the writ petition challenge was laid to the award dated 26.10.1999 passed by the Presiding Officer, Industrial Tribunal, Punjab, Chandigarh (for short 'the Tribunal ') under Section 33(1 )(b) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (for short 'the Act'). The award was rendered on complaints filed by four workmen under Section 33 -A of the Act of which one of the workmen is the respondent in the present appeal. On a detailed examination of evidence and materials on record the Tribunal by its well reasoned order directed reinstatement to service with continuity and full back wages. The Tribunal found that the discharge of the workman by appellant PESCO was punitive in nature for the alleged misconduct. Termination was effected without holding enquiry into the alleged charges. A finding has also been returned that respondent -Harinder Singh was at the material time the elected Secretary of the Workers Union and was discharged because of his Trade Union activities. It was found that PESCO had acted unfairly in terminating the services of the respondent workman arbitrarily on 10.9.1998, during the last extension of contractual service from 14.5.1998 to 13.5.1999. To make matters worse for PESCO there was non -compliance of Section 25 -F of the Act.
(2.) IT may be noticed as an admitted fact that the respondent -workman as Secretary of the Punjab Ex -Serviceman Corporation Employees Union (Regd.) had raised an industrial dispute through a demand notice dated 7.2.1998 and a large number of industrial disputes between the employer and workmen came to be referred by the appropriate Government to the Tribunal on 4.6.1997, which was registered as reference No. 74 of 1997. The reference was decided vide award dated 20.10.1999. It was during the pendency of this reference that the respondent -workman and three of his compatriots had moved complaints under Section 33 -A of the Act, that culminated in the award dated 26.10.1999, impugned in the writ petition, which has been upheld by the learned Single Judge.
(3.) WE have heard learned counsel for the parties. Mr. Pawan Kumar Mutneja, learned counsel for the appellant -PESCO in his challenge to both the judgment and order of learned Single Judge and the award of the Tribunal has drawn our attention to an order of the appropriate Government (P2) addressed to PESCO dated 19.6.1999 according Government approval to the closure of the Auto Workshop, a unit of PESCO. It is thus contended that since the respondent workman was engaged in the Auto Workshop, therefore, he could be legally shunted out de hors his status as a Secretary of the Union or 'protected workman '.;