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INDUSTRIAL DISPUTE:

The erstwhile workmen of 'the Company' thereafter issued a notice of demand of reemployment upon the Appellant herein. It is also not in dispute that M/s R.K. Taneja and 72 others as workmen of the said establishment filed a writ petition before this Court, under Article 32 of the Constitution of India, inter alia, for a declaration that Section 13 of the said Act is unconstitutional. A direction was also sought for therein against the Appellant herein to offer re-employment to the said petitioners. The said writ petition was dismissed in limine by an order dated 5.5.1983. The Respondents herein, long thereafter raised an industrial dispute by serving demand notices seeking reemployment in the services of the Appellant purported to be in terms of Section 25H of the 1947 Act.
"(i) workmen-Respondents retrenched by the company in August 1977 and did not challenge retrenchment. The company, thereafter, went into liquidation and its undertakings came to vest in the Petitioner under Acquisition Act, but liabilities of the company were never taken over,.
(ii) Petitioner cannot be said to be successor-in-

interest of the company and become liable to offer reemployment to the workmen in terms of Section 25H of the Act.

(iii) Under Section 25H, a workman can claim reemployment after retrenchment only from that employer who had retrenched him. In the instant case, the workmen had never been in the employment of the Petitioner nor did the Petitioner retrench them. They were in the employment of the company and it is the company which retrenched them in August 1977. Thus, the claim for reemployment, if any, could be made against the company only and not against the Petitioner.

"Very briefly stated Section 25FFF which has been already discussed lays that "where an undertaking is closed down for any reason whatsoever, every workman who has been in continuous service for not less than one year in that undertaking immediately before such closure shall, subject to the provisions of sub-section (2), be entitled to notice and compensation in accordance with the provisions of Section 25F, as if the workman had been retrenched" (emphasis supplied). Section 25H provides for reemployment of retrenched workmen. In brief, it provides that where any workmen are retrenched, and the employer proposes to take into his employment any person, he shall give an opportunity to the retrenched workmen to offer themselves for re-employment as provided in the section subject to the conditions as set out in the section. In our view, the principle of harmonious construction implies that in a case where there is a genuine transfer of an undertaking or genuine closure of an undertaking as contemplated in the aforesaid sections, it would be inconsistent to read into the provisions a right given to workman "deemed to be retrenched" a right to claim reemployment as provided in Section 25H. In such cases, as specifically provided in the relevant sections the workmen concerned would only be entitled to notice and compensation in accordance with Section 25F. It is significant that in a case of transfer of an undertaking or closure of an undertaking in accordance with the aforesaid provisions, the benefit specifically given to the workmen is "as if the workmen had been retrenched"

THE 1947 ACT:

We have noticed hereinbefore that the consequences other than payment of compensation envisaged in Section 25F of the Act do not flow in case of transfer or closure of the undertaking. Section 25H of the 1947 Act cannot, thus, be invoked in favour of the Respondents in view of the fact that they were not in the employment of the company on the appointed day i.e. on 13.10.1980.
The submission of Mr. Das to the effect that the Parliament having used the words 'every workman' in Section 25FFF, which would include dismissed workmen in view of its definition contained in Section 2(s) of the 1947 Act, should be widely interpreted so as to hold that even those workmen who had received compensation would be entitled to the benefit of Section 25H of the 1947 Act, cannot be accepted. Such a construction is not possible keeping in view the statutory scheme of the 1947 Act. Section 25F vis-`-vis Section 25B read with Section 2(oo) of the 1947 Act contemplates a situation where a workman is retrenched from services who had worked for a period of not less than one year on the one hand and those workmen who are covered by Section 25FF and Section 25FFF on the other keeping in view the fact that whereas in the case of the former, a retrenchment takes place, in the latter it does not. The Parliament amended the provisions of the 1947 Act by inserting Section 25FF and Section 25FFF therein by reason of the Industrial Disputes (Amendment Act), 1957 with effect from 28.11.1956, as it was found that having regard to the helpless condition to which workman would be thrown if his services are terminated without payment of compensation and presumably on the ground that if a reasonable compensation is awarded, he may be able to find out an alternative employment within a reasonable time. In the case of closure of an industrial undertaking the Act contemplates payment of compensation alone.