Gujarat High Court
Atul Kantilal Shah vs Garavi Gujarat General Kamdar Mandal on 25 November, 2025
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C/SCA/9526/2024 JUDGMENT DATED: 25/11/2025
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IN THE HIGH COURT OF GUJARAT AT AHMEDABAD
R/SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 9526 of 2024
FOR APPROVAL AND SIGNATURE:
HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE HEMANT M. PRACHCHHAK
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Approved for Reporting Yes No
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ATUL KANTILAL SHAH
Versus
GARAVI GUJARAT GENERAL KAMDAR MANDAL
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Appearance:
KRISHNAN M GHAVARIYA(8133) for the Petitioner(s) No. 1
MR ANAND B GOGIA(5849) for the Respondent(s) No. 1
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CORAM:HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE HEMANT M.
PRACHCHHAK
Date : 25/11/2025
ORAL JUDGMENT
1. RULE. Learned counsel Mr. Anand Gogia, waives service of
notice of Rule for and on behalf of the respondent.
2. Present petition is filed by the petitioner under Article 226 &
227 of the Constitution of India read with Rule 26(a) of the Industrial
Disputes (Gujarat) Rules, 1966 challenging the impugned judgment
and order dated 29.04.2024 passed by the learned Industrial Tribunal,
Rajkot (hereinafter be referred to as "the Tribunal") in Misc.
Application (IT) No. 2 of 2023 in Reference IT No. 57 of 2018,
whereby, the learned Tribunal has rejected the application for
condonation of delay filed by the petitioner herein .
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3. Brief facts leading to the present petition are that, the
respondent-workman namely, Mrs. Ujiben Nanjibhai Dhavri filed a
Reference being Reference IT No. 57 of 2018 claiming that she was
working as a Sweeper-cum-peon with the petitioner Hospital since
01.01.1987 and that she should be granted the benefits of
permanency/regularization. Unfortunately, the petitioner could not
remain present before the Tribunal to contest the proceedings and
therefore, the Tribunal proceeded ex-parte and passed the award
dated 11.08.2021 by which, the Reference was partly allowed and the
petitioner was directed to grant the benefits of permanency to the
respondent-workman from 01.08.2018. That, after passing of the
award, the respondent-workman preferred an application for breach
of award in which notice was issued to the petitioner on 26.09.2023.
That, the petitioner came to know about the award passed by the
Tribunal when they received the notice for breach of award dated
26.09.2023 after which, the petitioner has preferred Miscellaneous
Application No. 2 of 2023 under Rule 26(a) of Industrial Disputes
(Gujarat) Rules, 1966 for restoration of the Reference requesting a
bipartite hearing on 16.10.2023. However, the Industrial Tribunal
rejected the application for condonation of delay in filing restoration
application under Rule 26(a) of the Industrial Disputes (Gujarat) Rules,
1966 on 29.04.2024 and held that there was more than 700 days of
delay in filing the application for restoration.
4. Being aggrieved and dissatisfied with the Award passed in
Reference and the order passed in Misc. (IT) Application No. 2 of
2023, the petitioner has preferred this petition.
5. Heard Mr. Krishnan Ghavariya, learned counsel appearing for
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C/SCA/9526/2024 JUDGMENT DATED: 25/11/2025
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the petitioner and Mr. Anand Gogia, learned counsel appearing for the
respondent.
6. Learned counsel Mr. Ghavariya has submitted that an ex-parte
Award was passed by the Labour Court without affording proper
opportunity to the petitioner to defend the case. He has submitted
that the Tribunal has observed and held that there was more than 700
days of delay in filing the application for restoration, however, the
Hon'ble Supreme Court had suspended all laws of limitation from
15.03.2020 to 28.02.2022. In other words, in calculating the delay in
any proceedings, the aforementioned period would stand exempted
and thus, the delay has been wrongly calculated by the Tribunal.
Learned counsel Mr. Ghavariya has therefore, urged that the
impugned Award and the order passed by the Tribunal be quashed
and set aside and the present petition be allowed.
7. As against that, learned counsel Mr. Anand Gogia, appearing for
the respondent-workman, has opposed the present petition and
submitted that there is no any infirmity or any illegality in the
impugned judgment and award passed by the Tribunal and therefore,
no interference is required to be called for in the present petition. He
has submitted that the impugned judgment and award passed by the
Tribunal is in consonance with the settled principles of law and is
passed after following due procedure and therefore, the same is
required to be confirmed and the present petition is required to be
dismissed and no interference is required to be called for while
exercising jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution of India.
8. I have heard the learned counsel appearing for the respective
parties and perused the material placed on record. I have also
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considered the facts of the case and the impugned Award and the
order passed by the Industrial Tribunal, Rajkot. The fact remains that
the impugned Award was passed ex-parte without affording proper
opportunity to the petitioner and therefore, petitioner is required to
be heard by giving proper opportunity to defend its case, as the
application for restoration came to be dismissed solely on the ground
of delay and thus, the matter is required to be remanded back to the
concerned Industrial Tribunal for deciding the issue afresh.
9. In the result, the present petition is partly allowed. The
impugned judgment and order dated 29.04.2024 passed by the
learned Industrial Tribunal, Rajkot in Misc. Application (IT) No. 2 of
2023 in Reference IT No. 57 of 2018 is hereby quashed and set aside.
The original Reference is restored to its file. The matter is remanded
back to the concerned Industrial Tribunal to decide the original
Reference afresh. The same shall be decided by the Tribunal on
merits, after giving proper opportunity to both the sides. It is open for
both the parties to raise all the contentions available under the law
before the concerned Tribunal. The Tribunal is also requested to
decide the Reference as expeditiously as possible in accordance with
law, since the Reference is very old. Rule is made absolute to the
aforesaid extent.
9.1 The petitioner shall pay an amount of Rs.5,000/- towards cost
directly to the respondent-workman by an Account Payee cheque in
favour of the respondent-workman, after following due procedure and
after verifying her bank details.
(HEMANT M. PRACHCHHAK,J)
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