Entitlement of any employee for full back wages in thecase of reinstatement

This article briefly covers a very important problem in service

law which is “entitlement of an employee to back wages

whenever an order of reinstatement in favour of the said

employee is ruled by the Hon’ble Court”. To understand

the present controversy it is very important to mention here a

very important case in which Hon’ble Apex Court orders

reinstatement with full back wages and the said case is

mentioned in later paragraphs of this article.

Whenever services of any employer is terminated then

there is a mandatory condition which is to be followed by any

employer comes within the definition of Article 12 of the

constitution of India which speaks about state and its

instrumentality however this particular article is discovering

the concept of grant of back wages to any employee whose

services were terminated and when the workmen approached

to Hon’ble Court then the order of termination is set-aside and

directing the employer to reinstate him, and as a concept and

legal mandate discussed in Article 311 which speaks about

providing adequate /efficient opportunity of hearing to any

employee before terminating the services and if these

conditions are violated then in those cases when any High

Courts quashes the order of termination then ordinarily full

back wages is also something which is deserved by the

workmen as well, the another angle which needs to be looked

is regarding the principal of natural justice which is very

clearly outlined in Article 311 of the Constitution of India,

hence in these kind of cases the employee may claim for full

back wages as well.

Looking more to this controversy now a precise question

arise that what are those facts and reason in a particular case

in which Hon’ble Court needs to look into granting the order

of paying back wages to an employee of the period in which

he was out of his services and consequently he obtained an

order of reinstatement on merits. In the case of “Surendra

Kumar Verma and others Versus Central Government

Industrial Tribunal Cum Labour Court, New Delhi and

another, SCC (4) 1980 page no. 443” which is heard by

three judges of Hon’ble Supreme Court on this specific

question regarding entitlement of workmen to full back wages

in case of unjustified termination of services and it was also

examined by Hon’ble Apex Court what are those

circumstances in which the full back wages be granted to a

workmen and in para no. 6 of the said judgment the Hon’ble

Justice Chinnapa Reddy. J. declaring the law taken a broad

view and declares that ordinarily when illegal termination is

done to any employee then reinstatement plus full back

wages be given and more importantly it was outlined in the

said judgment that only in exceptional circumstances like if

industry might have closed down or industry / employer is in

serious financial doldrums or if workmen have sought a better

employment then in those circumstances the prayer of full

back wages may not be granted and further on these precise

concept the appeals was allowed with grant of full back

wages.