Gujarat High Court
State Of Gujarat vs Dwarkaprasad Ramdulare Yadav on 3 December, 2025
NEUTRAL CITATION
C/SCA/13833/2020 JUDGMENT DATED: 03/12/2025
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IN THE HIGH COURT OF GUJARAT AT AHMEDABAD
R/SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 13833 of 2020
FOR APPROVAL AND SIGNATURE:
HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE HEMANT M. PRACHCHHAK Sd/-
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Approved for Reporting Yes No
No
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STATE OF GUJARAT & ANR.
Versus
DWARKAPRASAD RAMDULARE YADAV & ANR.
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Appearance:
MS FORAM TRIVEDI AGP for the Petitioner(s) No. 1,2
AAKASH D MODI(7449) for the Respondent(s) No. 1
RULE SERVED for the Respondent(s) No. 2
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CORAM:HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE HEMANT M. PRACHCHHAK
Date : 03/12/2025
ORAL JUDGMENT
1. Present petition is filed by the petitioner-State of Gujarat under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India challenging the impugned award dated 16.10.2018 in Reference (L.C.J.) No. 03 of 2014 passed by the Labour Court, Jamnagar whereby the Labour Court has partly allowed the reference and awarded reinstatement to respondent No.1 with continuity of service however, without any backwages.
2. Facts of the case are that the respondent No.1 was Page 1 of 6 Uploaded by SURESH SOLANKI(HC00208) on Tue Dec 09 2025 Downloaded on : Wed Dec 10 20:42:46 IST 2025 NEUTRAL CITATION C/SCA/13833/2020 JUDGMENT DATED: 03/12/2025 undefined working as Rojamdar since 1999 and after period of more than 10 years, his service came to be orally terminated on 11.11.2011 by the petitioner. Being aggrieved with the said termination, the respondent No.1 raised an industrial dispute before the Labour Court, Jamnagar and the Labour Court, Jamnagar vide order dated 16.10.2018 has partly allowed the said reference and granted reinstatement with continuity of service to the respondent No.1 herein however, without any backwages.
3. Being aggrieved by the award passed by the Labour Court, the petitioner-State of Gujarat has preferred present petition.
4. Heard learned counsel appearing for the respective parties.
5. Ms. Trivedi, learned AGP for the petitioner has submitted the same facts which are narrated in the memo of petition and has submitted that Labour Court has committed error in observing that respondent No.1 was in continuous service with the petitioner, as defined and stated under Section 25(F) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. She has submitted that the respondent No.1 has never worked with the petitioner for 240 days and under such circumstances, the conclusion of the Labour Court that the respondent No.1 had worked for 240 days with the petitioner is erroneous, and therefore, the order suffers from infirmity and illegality. Over- and-above, the grounds enumerated in the memo of petition, the learned AGP for the petitioner has submitted that the impugned judgment and award passed by the Labour Court is Page 2 of 6 Uploaded by SURESH SOLANKI(HC00208) on Tue Dec 09 2025 Downloaded on : Wed Dec 10 20:42:46 IST 2025 NEUTRAL CITATION C/SCA/13833/2020 JUDGMENT DATED: 03/12/2025 undefined illegal, unjust and improper and the same deserves to be quashed and set aside and the petition deserves to be allowed.
6. On the other hand, Mr.Modi, learned counsel for the respondent No.1 has objected the petition and submitted that the Labour Court has not committed any error in granting reinstatement to respondent No.1. He has submitted that the impugned award passed by the Labour Court is in consonance with the provisions of law. He has submitted that the impugned award passed by the Labour Court by considering the facts of the case and the settled legal principles. Lastly, he has submitted that considering the length of service of the respondent No.1, this Court may pass appropriate order.
7. Considering the submissions canvassed by learned counsel appearing for the respective parties and the impugned judgment and award passed by the Labour Court, it appears that the Labour Court has rightly appreciated the evidence while granting reinstatement to the respondent No..1 however, this Court is of the opinion that considering the length of service of the respondent No.1 with the petitioner, lump sum compensation is required to be paid to the respondent No.1. In view of the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Maharashtra State Cooperative Marketing Federation Limited Versus Suresh S/o Dadarao Gadge reported in (2015) 4 SCC 542 and the oral order dated 18.04.2024 passed by the Division Bench of this Court in Letters Patent Appeal No. 908 of 2023 and allied appeals more particularly para - 10 and the order dated 18.04.2024 passed by the Division Bench of this Page 3 of 6 Uploaded by SURESH SOLANKI(HC00208) on Tue Dec 09 2025 Downloaded on : Wed Dec 10 20:42:46 IST 2025 NEUTRAL CITATION C/SCA/13833/2020 JUDGMENT DATED: 03/12/2025 undefined Court in Letters Patent Appeal No.1091 of 2023 and allied appeals more particularly paras - 5 and 6 and the order dated 29.01.2025 passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Civil Appeal No.1198 of 2025, I am of the opinion that the respondent No.1 is entitled to get lump sum compensation to the tune of Rs.5,00,000/-.
8. The relevant para - 10 of the oral order dated 18.04.2024 passed by the Division Bench of this Court in Letters Patent Appeal No. 908 of 2023 and allied appeals reads thus:-
"10. Having come to the conclusion that the lump sum compensation would be appropriate remedy for the families of the deceased workmen, the other aspects which comes for consideration is quantum of lump sum compensation. Though learned advocate Mr. Bhatt has contended that there was delay in preferring the complaint and the subsequent reference, it can be observed from the pleadings that the averments with regard to delay and laches in preferring the reference were not made before the labour court as well as the learned Single Judge. Therefore, the argument of learned advocate Mr. Bhatt with regard to delay and laches in preferring reference cannot be countenanced and what needs to be seen is that almost all the workmen have put in 16-20 years of service for the respondent and their services were terminated without following due procedure of law. Therefore, the families of the deceased workmen needs to be compensated proportionally as to the number of years of service put in by them. However, in order to balance the equation, we have considered to give effect of delay in preferring the reference while enhancing the amount of compensation. Thus, while calculating the number of years of services, we proposed to deduct the number of years service for which there is delay in preferring reference. After deduction of such number of service, we propose to give compensation Page 4 of 6 Uploaded by SURESH SOLANKI(HC00208) on Tue Dec 09 2025 Downloaded on : Wed Dec 10 20:42:46 IST 2025 NEUTRAL CITATION C/SCA/13833/2020 JUDGMENT DATED: 03/12/2025 undefined in the following tabular form:
Sr.N Total no. of years for Amount of lump sum o. lump sum compensation compensation 1 5 to 10 years Rs.3.00 lacs 2 10-15 years Rs.5.00 lacs 3 15-20 years Rs.7.5 lacs
9. The relevant paras 5 and 6 of the oral order dated 18.04.2024 passed by the Division Bench of this Court in Letters Patent Appeal No. 1091 of 2023 and allied appeals reads thus:-
"5. Therefore, looking to the gap which intervened between the date of termination and the date of granting reinstatement, the approach of the learned Single Judge granting lump sum compensation cannot be faulted with.
6. Looking to the various aspects and factors which are considered above, like the nature of employment, time gap intervened, length of service, the compensation awarded to the tune could not be said to be unreasonable. Therefore, Letters Patent Appeals preferred by the Municipality on the question of amount of compensation as well as appeals preferred by the workmen seeking reinstatement are liable to be dismissed. However, in one of the matters being Letters Patent Appeal No. 701 of 2023 in Special Civil Application No. 18334 of 2021 in the case of workman being Koli Vairaginiben Ramkumar, we observe that the compensation given by the learned Single Judge is to the tune of Rs.6,25,000/- for 11 years of service. It can be observed from the order passed by the learned Single Judge that such amount is proportionally different from the other set of amounts which are given as compensation. However, for the identical years of work i.e. 11 years of service, the other workmen are granted an amount of Rs.3,25,000/- as lump sum Page 5 of 6 Uploaded by SURESH SOLANKI(HC00208) on Tue Dec 09 2025 Downloaded on : Wed Dec 10 20:42:46 IST 2025 NEUTRAL CITATION C/SCA/13833/2020 JUDGMENT DATED: 03/12/2025 undefined compensation. Thus, we are inclined to modify the amount of lump sum compensation in Letters Patent Appeal No. 701 of 2023 to the tune of Rs.3,25,000/- from Rs.6,25,000/-. Hence, Letters Patent Appeal No. 701 of 2023 is partly allowed to the aforesaid extent, whereas, all the other Letters Patent Appeals stand dismissed as no ground is made out to interfere with the order of the learned Single Judge."
10. Now, considering the materials placed on record and the peculiar facts of this case, it would be just and proper to pay lump sum compensation to the tune of Rs.5,00,000/- to the respondent-workmen, which will serve the ends of justice.
11. In view of the above, present petition is partly allowed. The impugned judgment and award dated 16.10.2018 in Reference (L.C.J.) No. 03 of 2014 passed by the Labour Court, Jamnagar is hereby modified accordingly. An amount of Rs.5,00,000/- as lump sum compensation shall be paid to the workman by the employer after proper verification of the identity and bank details through RTGS within a period of eight weeks from the date of receipt of the writ of this order. There shall be no order as to costs. Rule is made absolute to the aforesaid extent.
Sd/-
(HEMANT M. PRACHCHHAK,J) SURESH SOLANKI Page 6 of 6 Uploaded by SURESH SOLANKI(HC00208) on Tue Dec 09 2025 Downloaded on : Wed Dec 10 20:42:46 IST 2025