Continuous service under retrenchment law includes 240 days' actual work, making termination invalid without statutory compliance.

Actual work for 240 days in a period of twelve calendar months is deemed to satisfy the requirement of one year's continuous service for retrenchment under section 25F of the Industrial Disputes Act, even where employment was interrupted by breaks. Section 25B creates a statutory fiction that such service counts as continuous service, and the broader definition in section 2(eee) cannot be applied to defeat that deeming provision. The 1964 amendments were treated as clarificatory, not as changing the rule. On that basis, termination without compliance with section 25F's mandatory conditions was invalid.

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Issues: Whether a workman who had actually worked for 240 days in a period of twelve calendar months, though with breaks in service, was deemed to have completed one year of continuous service for the purpose of retrenchment under section 25F of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

Analysis: Section 25F applies where retrenchment is of a workman who has been in continuous service for not less than one year. Section 25B specifically provides that, for the purposes of section 25F, a workman who has actually worked for not less than 240 days during a period of twelve calendar months shall be deemed to have completed one year of continuous service. The statutory fiction created by section 25B treats such service as continuous service even if the employment was interrupted. The definition of continuous service in section 2(eee) does not control section 25B in a manner that would defeat that deeming provision. The subsequent amendments of 1964 were treated as consolidating and clarifying the same position rather than changing the rule.

Conclusion: The workman satisfied the requirement of one year of continuous service for section 25F, and the termination without compliance with the statutory conditions was invalid.

Final Conclusion: The appeal could not succeed because the retrenchment was governed by section 25F and the workman was deemed to have completed the requisite continuous service.

Ratio Decidendi: For the purpose of section 25F of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, actual work for 240 days in a period of twelve calendar months is deemed to be one year of continuous service notwithstanding breaks in employment.

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