Re-employment after closure is unavailable where compensation was settled and no continuing employer-employee relationship existed.

In a genuine closure or transfer of an undertaking, the deeming language in Sections 25FF and 25FFF of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 operates only to compute compensation as if retrenchment had occurred and does not create continuing retrenchment rights. Section 25H applies to retrenched workmen in the sense contemplated by Section 25F, not to employees whose services ended on closure after compensation was settled. On the statutory scheme of the acquisition Act, only persons employed immediately before the appointed day could continue in service under Section 13; former workmen were not made employees of the transferee company. The claimed right to re-employment was therefore unavailable.

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Issues: Whether workmen whose services had been terminated on closure of the undertaking and who had received compensation could claim re-employment from the transferee Government company under Section 25H of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, and whether Section 13 of the Maruti Limited (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1980 made them employees of the transferee company.

Analysis: The statutory scheme of the acquisition Act showed that only persons employed immediately before the appointed day could continue in service under Section 13. The respondents had already ceased to be employees when the undertaking was closed and retrenchment compensation had been settled under the closure provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The expressions used in Sections 25FF and 25FFF of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 operate only for the limited purpose of computing compensation as if retrenchment had occurred; they do not carry the further incidents of retrenchment. Section 25H applies to retrenched workmen in the sense contemplated by Section 25F and does not extend to genuine transfer or closure cases. The earlier decisions relied upon for re-employment rights concerned materially different statutory settings and did not assist the respondents. The non obstante clause in the acquisition Act and the absence of any continuing employer-employee relationship with the appellant also negatived the claim.

Conclusion: The respondents had no enforceable right to re-employment against the appellant under Section 25H of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, and Section 13 of the acquisition Act did not make them employees of the appellant.

Final Conclusion: The award and the appellate judgment in favour of the workmen were unsustainable in law, and the appellant was entitled to succeed.

Ratio Decidendi: In cases of genuine closure or transfer of an undertaking, the deeming language in Sections 25FF and 25FFF of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 is confined to compensation and does not create a right to re-employment under Section 25H against the transferee.

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