LAKSHMI TALKIES Vs. MUNUSWAMI G A

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE first respondent Munuswami was a ticket collector in the employ of the Lakshmi Talkies, Perambur. According to the management, he applied for leave in January 1951. He was then asked to produce a medical certificate, but did not do so. Instead he stopped away from work but turned up on 3 February 1951, when he had a fit and had to be removed in an unconscious condition. On 8 February 1951 he again went to the office of the Lakshmi Talkies and said that he did not desire to serve them any more and wanted his accounts to be settled up to the date. Accordingly the management paid him whatever was due and thereafter he ceased to be their employee. Later, he wanted to return to his original post, but the management did not want him back. According to Munuswami, however, his services were wrongly terminated in March 1951. Munuswami moved the Commissioner for Workmen's Compensation and prayed for an order directing the Lakshmi Talkies to reinstate him in his old place. It appears that on 5 July 1951 the Commissioner for Workmen's Compensation passed an order directing that Munuswami be reinstated with effect from 5 March 1951. The management, however, did not give effect to this order. On 25 February 1952, Munuswami wrote to the South Indian Cinema Employees' Association giving his version of the facts and adding: I am too poor to try the processes of the ordinary courts of the land, and the Government do not choose to interfere further in such cases as they consider them quite small. . . In these circumstances I request you to see whether you are prepared to discuss my affair with the members of the union and make it an industrial dispute under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. On 26 February 1952 some eleven persons claiming to be the employees of the Lakshmi Talkies, Perambur, wrote to the South Indian Cinema Employees' Association requesting it to take up the case of Munuswami with a view to the order of the Commissioner for Workmen's Compensation being enforced. On 8 March 1952 the South Indian Cinema Employees' Association passed a resolution, the material part of which runs as follows: This general body resolves to authorize and direct the president and the secretary of the association to take all proceedings under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, in order to reinstate the worker and get him all compensation for the intervening period of enforced unemployment, by virtue of the collective bargaining of the association. The worker herein referred to is Munuswami. On 24 March 1952 the South Indian Cinema Employees' Association wrote to the labour officer drawing his attention to the fact that the management had not implemented the order of the Commissioner and requesting him to enquire into the matter and do the needful. Some conciliation proceedings followed but they yielded no results. On 15 May 1952 the South Indian Cinema Employees' Association wrote again to the labour officer, Mount Road, alleging: Even in your presence during the last enquiry the representative of the management remarked that the above worker was the leader. As the above worker is an active member of our union for the past three years and as the management victimized him, we request you and urge upon you to refer the above matter to an industrial tribunal at an early date. On 24 June 1952, the labour officer reported to Government that conciliation efforts had failed. On 18 July 1952, the association wrote to the Secretary to Government asking that the dispute be referred to an industrial tribunal. On 19 July 1952, the Government passed an order which, after reciting that an industrial dispute had arisen between the workers and the management of the Lakshmi Talkies, Perambur, Madras, in respect of the matter mentioned in the annexure to this order, referred the dispute to the industrial tribunal. The annexure to the order reads thus: Whether the dismissal of G. A. Munuswami, ticket collector, is justified and if not, to what relief he is entitled. On 4 October 1952, the industrial tribunal passed an order holding that the management's refusal to take back Munuswami was unjustified and that he was entitled to be reinstated as ticket collector and paid the remuneration due to him with effect from 5 March 1951, on the basis of what he was drawing at the time of the termination of his services. The management appealed to the Labour Appellate Tribunal but that appeal was dismissed on 27 November 1953. The Appellate Tribunal, however, observed: We may at once state that the dispute relates to an individual dispute. The present petition has been filed by the management for the issue of an appropriate writ to quash the order of the industrial tribunal, Madras, dated 17 September 1952, and of the Labour Appellate Tribunal, dated 27 November 1953.

(2.) THE principal contention of Mr. O. T. G. Nambiar for the petitioner may be thus summarized. The dispute in the present case was only an individual dispute between Munuswami and the Lakshmi Talkies and was not an industrial dispute at all. That view has been plainly expressed by the Labour Appellate Tribunal itself. An industrial dispute is defined in Section 2 (k) of the Industrial Disputes Act in these terms: Industrial dispute means any dispute or difference between employers and employers, or between employers and workmen, or between workmen and workmen, which is connected with the employment or non-employment or the terms of employment or with the conditions of labour of any person. This definition will only apply to cases where, taking a broad view of the facts, it would be permissible to say that there is a dispute between an employer and workers generally. If employer A has a quarrel with employer B, it will normally be outside the scope of the Act. The individual employers concerned must seek redress for any wrong, which they may think they have suffered, in the ordinary courts of law. Similarly, if there is a dispute between a particular employer and a particular employee, then such a dispute would be outside the scope of the Act.

(3.) IN support of this reasoning Mr. Nambiar referred to two decisions of this Court. The first is Kandan Textiles, Ltd. v. Industrial Tribunal, Madras 1949 L. L. J. 875. On p. 882 the learned Chief Justice observed: This undoubtedly suggests that something more than an individual dispute between a worker or a few workers and the employer is meant by an industrial dispute. It suggests that it must be a collective dispute, i. e. , a dispute between the employer on the one hand and the entire establishment or a part of the establishment on the other hand in which it is reasonable to presume that at least a substantial number of the employees in the establishment as a whole or in the concerned part of the establishment should be at dispute. In Manager, United Commercial Bank v. Commissioner of Labour 1951--I L. L. J. 1 at 5 the learned Chief Justice observed: The point for decision ultimately reduces itself to this. When an individual employee seeks to set aside an order of dismissal against him, is there an industrial dispute within the meaning of the Industrial Disputes Act ? If it can be said that a mere individual dispute, such as for instance that in the present case, is an industrial dispute, then it would follow that the remedy of the aggrieved employee would only be a reference under the Industrial Disputes Act. The result would be that Section 41 (2) of the Madras Act would have no application at all to the case of dismissed employees except in cases, if there be any such, which would not fall within the Industrial Disputes Act. Having regard to the very wide definition of 'industry' in Section 2 (j) of the Industrial Disputes Act, it is difficult to conceive of any such case. . . It may be that the dismissal of even one workman can become the subject of an industrial dispute, but then it is no longer an individual dispute between the dismissed workman and the employer only; it becomes a dispute between the workmen on the one hand and the employer on the other. Such a dispute, it maybe called a collective dispute, certainly cannot be the subject-matter of an appeal under Section 41 of the Madras Act. Such dispute would have to be referred to a tribunal or other authority under Section 10 of the Industrial Disputes Act?.