JUDGMENT
1. This special appeal is directed against the judgment of learned Single Judge dated August 20, 1993, whereby the award in favour of the respondents treating him to be a workman and terminating his services without complying with the provisions of Section 25F of the Industrial Disputes Act, .1947, has been confirmed and it is held that his services have wrongly been terminated and, therefore, the order treating him to be in continuous service since October 19, 1978, has been sustained. Mr. Munshi, appearing for the appellant, has submitted that the order of learned Single Judge is not sustainable because the respondent was appointed as an apprentice and was being paid at the rate of Rs. 150 per month. It is true that, that period of training was only for one year but thereafter, no formal order was issued either granting any appointment to the petitioner as a workman or extending his training period but in spite of that he continued to work with them and, therefore, he should not have been treated as a workman but an apprentice. Both the learned Judge of the Industrial Tribunal as also the learned Single Judge have erred in treating him as a workman. In this respect, he placed reliance on a single Bench’s decision of this court rendered in Abdul Aziz v. Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation, (1992) 2 WLC 558 (Raj), wherein it has been held that the apprentice is himself a person not doing apprenticeship training in pursuance of contract of apprentice, the apprenticeship was for one year but continued in the subsequent years but his continuation to any subsequent terms does not clothe the apprenticeship with higher status than what he had at the time of entry in the apprenticeship employment and, therefore, in terminating the service of such apprentice provisions of Section 25F of the Industrial Disputes Act are not applicable.
2. It was further contended by learned counsel for the petitioner that the petitioner was employed as an apprentice on October 19, 1978, on a non-job guarantee basis. The department has issued a circular specifying that those apprentices who have been employed prior to August 31, 1978, will enjoy job guarantee whereas those who are employed after August 31, 1978 will have no job guarantee. It was contended by Mr. Munshi that the learned Labour Judge has wrongly construed the date of the employment of the respondents as apprentice as August 19, 1978, whereas, it was actually October 19, 1978, and therefore, his employment as an apprentice was actually on non-job guarantee basis and this is a mistake apparent on the face of the record and, therefore, the order rendered by the learned Judge Industrial Tribunal as also the Labour Tribunal, Udaipur, cannot be sustained.
3. We have given our anxious consideration to the submissions made at the Bar by Mr. Munshi and have gone through the record of the case. In this case, petitioner was employed as an apprentice, vide order Annexure 3 dated October 19, 1978. The admitted case of the parties before the Labour Tribunal as also learned Single Judge was that his period of employment as an apprentice was for one year. After the expiry of one year, no formal order extending the training period as apprentice was passed nor any formal order of appointment was accorded in favour of the respondents. Thus, he was continued in employment. Now, the sole question that arises for decision is whether he can be treated as a workman after the expiry of a period of apprenticeship or in spite of the fact that no formal order extending the period of apprenticeship has been passed he should be treated as an apprentice. Mr. Munshi in this respect relied on a decision of learned Single Judge rendered in the case of Abdul Aziz, (supra), quoted above. That was a case in which apprentice on completion of the period of training applied to the employer that his apprenticeship should be extended but no such extension was granted and then he filed a writ petition that he should be treated as a workman. In Annexure 3 there is clause No. 12 which clearly says that on successful completion of training the trainee may be appointed on a suitable post in the corporation in a regular scale of pay against existing vacancies or kept in a vacancy which may arise. The appointment will of course be as per rules. It is not a case of the appellants that no vacancy existed in the Corporation on completion of a training period. It is further not their case that the training was not completed successfully by the apprentice.
4. Under these facts and circumstances of this case, when he has completed training successfully and has been retained in service for 3 long years and 4 months, then there is no escape from the conclusion that he has to be treated as workman against a vacant post. Of course, he could not have been treated to be workman from October 19, 1978, and could have been treated as workman only on expiry of training period, i.e., October 18, 1979, because thereafter he was allowed to continue in service for more than two years and four months and, therefore, his service could not have been terminated without complying with the provisions of Section 25F of the Industrial Disputes Act, and, therefore, to that extent the award of the learned Judge of the Industrial Tribunal and Labour Judge deserves to be sustained. The judgment of the learned Single Judge also deserves to be sustained with this modification that he will be treated as a workman with effect from October 19, 1979 and not from October 19, 1978.
The special appeal is disposed of accordingly on the merits at the admission stage with the aforesaid observations.