Sacked gardener reinstated after 25 years

Times of India: Ahmedabad: Wednesday, 11 March 2015.

Twenty-five years ago a forest gardener Ashok Rathod was dismissed from service just because he remained absent for four hours from duty! On Tuesday Rathod, a resident of Bapunagar reported back to duty at Antharsubha range office in Kheda, after fighting a protracted battle for justice in the high court and getting his job back. Rathod had used RTI to prove the alleged mischief of his seniors almost 25 years ago.

The forest department had sacked Rathod, and mentioned in his service record that he was absent for four hours at the Nana Chiloda nursery in Gandhinagar where he served as a contract labourerss. He fought a legal battle for 25 years 1,92,720 hours to prove that decision of his seniors was malafied.

In the two decades of struggle for justice, Rathod lost his job, his wife left him and his kids lost hope. Rathod's only fault was that he had requested the in-charge forester in 1990 to convert his contract job to a permanent one (according to service rules), the department claimed he had not clocked the requisite hours of service.

"If the minimum requirement was 240 days of service in a year, the forest official claimed that I had worked for 239.5 days. Just four hours short. Rathod approached the labour court and after fighting for 15 years the labour court ruled in favour of forest department. I lost the case," he recalled.

Rathod did not allow the defeat to weaken him. Instead he used RTI and asked for copies of his attendance registers. The then chief information commissioner, R N Das, gave the case several hearings till the forest department produced the records. Rathod had worked for 258 days in a single nursery. In 2010, he moved the Gujarat HC seeking revocation of the labour court's order. In January 2014, the court ruled in his favour.

"My wife Babita had started making incense sticks to support our children's education. After three years, she asked me to leave the house and the children. The legal battle for justice became all the more important for me as I wanted to win back my family," Rathod says. On Tuesday after almost 25 years, Babita packed his tiffin box as he left for work, his children called him a hero said an elated Rathod.