- (1.) The petitioner after having obtained a trade certificate from the Industrial Training Institute, Jaipur in Fitter trade in the year 1978 applied to the Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation for being given the job of an apprentice. On 26-9-1978 the petitioner obtained the said job. The period of the appientice-ship was one year. The petitioner was told on 5th Sept. 1981 by the Assistant Mechanical Engineer (A.M.E.) that his services will be discontinued from 27th Sept. 1981. The petitioner's request for continuing him as an apprentice, however, went futile. He was getting Rs. 150/- p. m. as salary on which he had been initially kept.
(2.) The petitioner, thereafter, filed the present writ petition asserting that after 27-9-1979 when the period of apprenticeship training expired he became a workman and could be terminated in accord ance with the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act. His claim was refuted by the Roadways Corporation on the plea that the petitioner was an apprentice and even after the expiry of the period of one year he continued on his own request as such. Through this petition, under Article 226 of the Constitution, the petitioner has asserted that as the provisions of Section 25-F had not been followed the termination was invalid.
(3.) Having heard the counsel for the parties, I am unable to hold that the petitioner was a workman within the meaning of that word defined in the Industrial Disputes Act.;