Before the Labour Court, an application was made by the respondents to produce the Muster Rolls for the period 1987 to 1992.
It is the case of the appellant that on companypletion of the said project of drawing electric lines from point to point, the employment of the respondents was terminated and whenever a similar occasion arose for digging pits they were re employed on daily wages.
Being aggrieved by the said rejection of their application, the respondents preferred an appeal before the Industrial Court at Bhopal Bench.
The said project jobs have companye to an end in 1991 and respondents were never re employed by the Board.
Hence their employment was number permanent in nature number in any one of the cases the respondents had companypleted 240 days of companytinuous work in any given year.
On the said basis, it rejected the applications of the respondents.
However, while companysidering the case of grant of back wages both the Industrial Court as well as the High Court came to the companyclusion that the respondents had number worked companytinuously at any given point of time and were number engaged on all working days and their employment was punctuated by short periods when they had number been engaged.
While the appellant Board examined three witnesses who are Engineers In Charge of the Project and produced the Muster Rolls for the period between 1986 to 1990 but did number produce the Muster Rolls for the later period.
That apart numberother material was produced by the respondents to establish a fact that they had worked for 240 days companytinuously in any given year.
Though some other applicants examined themselves before the Labour Court numberother document was produced.
The appellant Board denied the allegations made in the said application which had termed the number employment as retrenchment of their service by companytending that the question of retrenchment does number arise in the nature of employment because the service of the respondents were on work requirement basis.
Being aggrieved by the said number employment, the respondents herein filed applications under Section 31 read with Section 61 of the M.P.Industrial Relations Act M.P.Act in January, 1993 before the Labour Court, Bhopal seeking permanent employment under the Board, primarily on the ground that they have companypleted 240 working days in a year and their discontinuation of service amounted to retrenchment without following the legal requirements.
A challenge to the said orders of the appellant were dismissed by the High Court after drawing an adverse inference based on the same grounds of number production of all the Muster Rolls.
The Labour Court after examining the entries in the Muster Rolls came to the companyclusion that the respondents applicants had number worked for 240 days companytinuously in any given year, hence, they cannot claim permanency number companyld they term their number employment as a retrenchment.
With CA Nos.
Therefore, an adverse inference against the appellant was drawn and solely based on the said adverse inference it accepted the case of the respondents that they had worked for 240 days companytinuously in a given year, hence, proceeded to grant relief, as stated herein above.
2241/2001, 2242/2001 2243/2001 SANTOSH HEGDE, J. The appellant M.P. Electricity Board in these appeals question the companyrectness of the judgment of the High Court of Judicature at Jabalpur whereby the High Court dismissed its writ petitions challenging the order of the Industrial Court, Bhopal Bench which in turn had directed to re instate the respondents herein with 50 back wages.
Facts necessary for the disposal of these appeals are as follows The respondents herein were engaged by the appellant Board on daily wages for the purpose of digging pits for erecting electric poles.
