Gurmeet Singh Sandhawalia, J. - (1.) CHALLENGE in the present writ petition is to the Award dated 09.10.2013 (Annexure P -1) whereby, the Labour Court, Chandigarh has declined the reference and answered the same against the workman. The claim of the workman was that he was appointed as a Gardener (mali) on daily wages in Government Model High School, Sector 26, Chandigarh in April 1993 and worked upto 15.05.2001 and was drawing Rs. 1,000/ - per month as wages. His services were terminated without giving any notice under Section 25 -F or 25 -N of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (in short 'the Act') and no inquiry was conducted nor any compensation had been paid in spite of the fact that he had completed 240 days. The juniors had been working and he had approached the Central Administrative Tribunal but with no success on the ground that it had no jurisdiction.
(2.) THE respondent -State opposed the claim on the ground that he was engaged as a part time Mali out of the Parent Teachers Association Fund, which was a purely private fund collected from the students by the Chairman of the Parent Teachers Association (in short 'PTA') and he was not an employee of the school. Initially, he had been paid Rs. 225/ - per month as wages which was later on raised to Rs. 1000/ - per month and he worked upto July, 2000. The school was taken over by the Police Department, U.T., Chandigarh and his services were dispensed with as they were no longer required. No juniors had been working with the management. The workman stepped into the witness box as AW -1 and examined Manjit Singh, Retired Headmaster of the school as AW -2 whereas, the State examined Sh. Shekhar Chander, Headmaster as MW -1.
(3.) THE whole case of the petitioner revolves around a certificate dated 15.05.2000 (Annexure P -2) issued by AW -2, the then Headmaster.;