Mohd. Ali v. The State of Himachal Pradesh
Background
A casual labourer at a government seed farm in Himachal Pradesh worked on and off between 1980 and 1991, completing 240 days of work in some years but falling well short of that in his final years (195 days in 1990 and only about 19.5 days in 1991) before he stopped coming to work. Years later, in 2005, he sought reinstatement through an industrial reference, and the Labour Court ordered the State to reinstate him with seniority and continuity (though without back wages). The State successfully challenged this before the High Court's Single Judge and then its Division Bench, both of which set aside the reinstatement order, leading the worker to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Decision Breakdown
The core legal question was whether a workman automatically gets the protection against retrenchment under Section 25F of the Industrial Disputes Act merely by having completed 240 days of work in any calendar year of his employment, or whether he must specifically have completed 240 days in the twelve months immediately preceding his termination. Relying on its own earlier rulings in Surendra Kumar Verma and Mohan Lal, the Supreme Court held that Section 25B(2) requires the 240 days to fall within the twelve calendar months immediately preceding the date of termination: it is not enough that he once completed 240 days in some earlier year. Since this worker had worked only about 19.5 days in the year immediately before he stopped working, he did not meet this threshold and could not claim the protections of Section 25F, so the Court dismissed his appeal and upheld the High Court's decision.
Lesson Learnt
To claim the legal protections available to a "continuous service" worker before being let go, what matters is whether you worked at least 240 days specifically in the twelve months right before your termination, not whether you once hit that number in some earlier year of your employment.