SHINOR TALUKA PANCHAYATversusMANJULABEN SURYABHAI VASAVA

     C/SCA/7752/2024                               JUDGMENT DATED: 03/03/2026




             IN THE HIGH COURT OF GUJARAT AT AHMEDABAD

               R/SPECIAL CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 7752 of 2024


FOR APPROVAL AND SIGNATURE:


HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE HEMANT M. PRACHCHHAK
================================================================

            Approved for Reporting                Yes          No

================================================================
                        SHINOR TALUKA PANCHAYAT
                                  Versus
                   MANJULABEN SURYABHAI VASAVA & ORS.
================================================================
Appearance:
MS SEJAL K MANDAVIA(436) for the Petitioner(s) No. 1
ROBIN PRASAD(9344) for the Respondent(s) No. 1,2,3,4
================================================================

 CORAM:HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE HEMANT M.
       PRACHCHHAK

                              Date : 03/03/2026

                                JUDGMENT


1.      RULE returnable forthwith. Learned counsel Mr. Robin Prasad,
waives service of notice of Rule for and on behalf of the respondents.


2.      Present petition is    led by the petitioner-Panchayat under
Articles 226 & 227 of the Constitution of India read with the provisions
of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (hereinafter be referred to as “the
Act”) challenging the judgment and award dated 18.07.2017 passed
by the learned Presiding O2cer, Labour Court, Vadodara (hereinafter
be referred to as “the Labour Court”) in Reference (LCV) No. 437 of
2011, whereby, the learned Judge has partly allowed the Reference
 led by the respondent-workman and directed the petitioner to



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reinstate the respondent in service with 35% back wages; as well as
the order dated 05.07.2023, passed by the learned Presiding O2cer,
Labour Court, Vadodara in Recovery Application No. 186 of 2020,
whereby, the learned Judge has partly allowed the recovery
application directing the petitioner to pay Rs. 3,50,806/- alongwith 6%
interest to the legal heirs of the deceased respondent-workman, from
the date of        ling of the recovery application and also awarded Rs.
5,000/- towards cost.


3.      Brief facts giving rise to the present petition are that, the
deceased respondent-workman was appointed as watchmen/Mali with
e=ect from 01.01.1988 with the petitioner-Panchayat and he was
terminated in the year of 1994 and therefore, the respondent-
workman         led Reference No. 75 of 1995, which was allowed on
01.03.1999, pursuant to which, the respondent-workman was
reinstated in the service. Thereafter, again the respondent-workman
was terminated from the service in the year 2011 and therefore, he
 led another Reference No. 437 of 2011, which was came to be
allowed by the Labour Court vide order dared 18.07.2017 and
directed the petitioner to reinstate the respondent in service with 35%
back wages. That, the award came into operation in the year of 2018,
meanwhile, the original workman expired on 08.02.2020 and
therefore, the respondents, being the legal representative and heirs
of the deceased workman, led recovery application which was came
to be allowed by the Labour Court vide order dated 05.07.2023
directing the petitioner to pay Rs. 3,50,806/- alongwith 6% interest to
the legal heirs of the deceased respondent-workman, from the date of
 ling of the recovery application and also awarded Rs. 5,000/- towards
cost.



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4.      Being aggrieved and dissatis ed with the impugned award
dated 18.07.2017 and the order dated 05.07.2023 passed by the
Labour Court, Vadodara, the petitioner has preferred this petition.


5.      Heard Ms. Sejal Mandavia, learned counsel appearing for the
petitioner-Panchayat and Mr. Robin Prasad, learned counsel appearing
for the legal heirs of the deceased respondent-workman.


6.      Learned counsel Ms. Mandavia has submitted that the
impugned judgment and award as well as the order passed by the
Labour Court are illegal, unjust, arbitrary, erroneous and contrary to
the facts and material on record and the provisions of the Act and
therefore, the same are required to be quashed and set aside. She
has submitted that the father of the respondents was appointed by
the petitioner-Panchayat by passing the resolution and he was not
appointed after following the selection process and he was not a
permanent daily wager also and therefore, he had no right to post and
he was not entitled to get the protection under the provisions of the
Act. She has submitted that in the year of 1989 resolution No. 17 was
passed, in which, President of the petitioner-Panchayat had resolved
that the deceased workmen required to be given a work of Mali and
Rs. 450 was decided as      x salary and the salary of the workman
required to be given from own fund of the Taluka Panchayat. She has
further submitted that in the year of 2011, the workman had broken
the lock of the o2ce of the President of Taluka Panchayat and he had
misbehaved with the then Taluka Development O2cer and other
o2cers therefore, the Taluka Panchayat had passed the resolution No.
16 to terminate the service of development and ultimately, the o2ce
order was passed terminating the service of the workman on
15.10.2011, which was challenged by          ling the aforesaid Reference


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     C/SCA/7752/2024                            JUDGMENT DATED: 03/03/2026




before the Labour Court. She has submitted that the concerned
lawyer had not informed anything to the o2ce of the petitioner and
therefore, the exparte award was passed against the petitioner and
thereafter, the recovery application was         led and as per the
instructions of the lawyer of the petitioner, the a2davit of evidence
was      led on behalf of the petitioner but again, could not know
anything about the proceedings of recovery application, meanwhile,
the lawyer had expired and the o2cers keep changing and therefore,
nobody could give proper attention to the legal proceedings. She has
submitted that when the application for issuing the recovery
certi cate was received by the petitioner, at that point of time, the
petitioner-Panchayat came to know about all the proceedings and
thereafter, the present petition has been led. Hence, there is some
delay in challenging the impugn orders. Over and above the grounds
agitated in the memo of appeal, learned counsel Ms. Mandavia has
urged that the impugned award as well as the order passed in
recovery application are required to be quashed and set aside and the
present petition is required to be allowed.


7.      As against that, learned counsel Mr. Robin Prasad, appearing for
the respondent-workman, has opposed the present petition and
submitted that there is no any in rmity or any illegality in the
impugned judgment and award passed by the Labour Court as well as
the order passed in recovery application and therefore, no
interference is required to be called for in the present petition.
Learned counsel Mr. Prasad has referred and relied upon the decision
of the Division Bench of this Court rendered in Letters Patent Appeal
No. 908 of 2023 and other allied matters, more particularly the
observations made in paras-7, 10 and 11 and urged that appropriate
orders be passed.


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8.       I have heard the learned counsel appearing for the respective
parties and perused the material placed on record. I have also gone
through the impugned judgment and award passed by the Labour
Court. 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 coming to the conclusion
and without there being any rebuttal, on the other hand, the Labour
Court has awarded the aforementioned relief. 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 Court in Letters Patent Appeal No.1091 of
2023 and allied appeals more particularly paras – 5 and 6, this
Court is of the opinion that interest of justice would be subserved, if
lump sump compensation is awarded in favour of the workman.

8.1      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.


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      C/SCA/7752/2024                                      JUDGMENT DATED: 03/03/2026




           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 e)ect 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 in the
           following tabular form:

                        Total no. of years for lump sum   Amount of lump sum
           Sr.No.
                                 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


8.2      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


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      C/SCA/7752/2024                                    JUDGMENT DATED: 03/03/2026




           from the order passed by the learned Single Judge that such
           amount is proportionally di)erent 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 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.”


9.       Now, considering the materials placed on record and the
peculiar facts of this case, this Court is of the opinion that considering
the tenure of 6 years’ service, illegal appointment, etc., it will be in
the      tness of things if, the award passed by the Labour Court is
suitably modi ed in light of the aforestated position of Law by
granting lumpsum compensation of Rs.3,00,000/- towards full and
 nal settlement of all the dues of the employee.


10.      In view of above, present petition is partly allowed. The
impugned judgment and award dated 18.07.2017 passed by the
learned Presiding O2cer, Labour Court, Vadodara in Reference (LCV)
No. 437 of 2011 is hereby modi ed accordingly. An amount of Rs.
3,00,000/- as lump sum compensation shall be paid to the legal heirs
of the deceased respondent-workman by the petitioner-Panchayat,
after proper veri cation of the identity and bank details through
RTGS/NEFT, within a period of eight weeks from the date of receipt
of the writ of this Order, which shall be disbursed in equal proportion
amognst the legal heirs of the deceased workman. Rule is made
absolute to the aforesaid extent. There shall be no order as to costs.




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           C/SCA/7752/2024                                                      JUDGMENT DATED: 03/03/2026




   10.1                The amount of Rs. 10,000/- deposited by the petitioner-
   Panchayat before the Registry of this Court in compliance of the order
   dated 08.05.2024 passed by this Court, shall be refunded to the
   petitioner, after proper veri cation.



                                                                      (HEMANT M. PRACHCHHAK,J)

   Dolly




Original copy of this order has been signed by the Hon'ble Judge.
Digitally signed by: DOLLYBEN CHETANBHAI VADUKAR(HC01392), PRIVATE SECRETARY, at High Court of Gujarat on 05/03/2026 17:11:25


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