The decision, dated 3-4-1985 recorded by the learned Presiding Officer, Punjab Labour Court No. 3, Lahore at Ferozewala has been challenged, whereby the respondent was directed to be reinstated in service with back benefits.
2. The respondent was working in cone winding section and was transferred as clerk in casting section on 25-2-1984 and was terminate from service on 29-2-1984 on the ground that he had become surplus on account of the abolition of the post held by him. The plea of abolition of post or surplus age was not taken in the written statement but in evidence. It has been rightly held by the learned lower Court that with mala fide intention the respondent was terminated. The mala' fide is apparent from the act of the appellant of transferring the respondent to casting section only four days before terminating his services. It is manifest that since the post of clerk was to be abolished, either to terminate the services of the respondent or to save the person who was working as clerk before the transfer of the respondent the latter was transferred. It was, therefore, a device to get rid of him or to save his predecessor in interest. There is no force in the argument that pursuant to the settlement, whereby the workers agreed to be terminated, the services of the respondent were terminated. This is not the position taken by the appellant either in written statement or in evidence or even in the termination order Exh. R-2. The settlement referred to by the learned counsel for the appellant is neither relevant to the case nor is on the file.
3. So far as back benefits are concerned, they were rightly awarded as the respondent asserted in his statement that he was, since the order of termination of his services, jobless.
4.As a result, the appeal fails and is consequently dismissed.
A.E.