- (1.) Challenge in the present petition is to the award dated 8.12.2011, passed by Presiding Officer, Industrial Tribunal, Jalandhar (for short, 'the Tribunal'), whereby the claim made by the petitioner to the effect that his service had been wrongly terminated, was dismissed.
(2.) Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner was employed as Beldar on 4.5.1991. His services were terminated illegally on 4.3.1994. Demand notice was issued. The dispute was referred to the Tribunal. The stand taken by the management was that the petitioner had, in fact, worked only for a period from May, 1991 to February, 1992 except for a period of two months in between, i.e., October, 1991 and January, 1992. In total, he worked only for 229 days. Beyond that, there was no record showing that the petitioner ever worked with the management. The submission is that record for the period of October, 1991 and January, 1992 was withheld by the management. Had that been produced in court, it would have shown that the petitioner had completed 240 days of actual working C.W.P. No. 12271 of 2012 [2] before his service was illegally terminated. There is no record available showing that the petitioner had worked after February, 1992 onwards except the oral statement of the petitioner and a co-worker.
(3.) The petitioner had also referred to an application filed by him seeking direction to the management to bring the record pertaining to the working of the petitioner from May, 1991 till March, 1994. The application is stated to have been filed in March, 2004 after the examination- in-chief of MW1- Ramesh Chander, Assistant Engineer, was recorded on 4.3.2004 showing that the petitioner had worked only for a period of 229 days. Despite that, the complete record was not produced, which prejudiced the case of the petitioner.;