Wanchoo, J. - (1.) This is an appeal by special leave in an industrial matter. There was a dispute between the appellant-company, which is a cement factory, and its workmen, and it was referred for adjudication by the Government of Bihar as far back as November 1954. There were a large number of matters which were referred. In this appeal however only three of them, namely, (i) gratuity, (ii) bonus for the year 1953, and (iii) all those whose names are on the company's roll for a year should be made permanent, have been pressed before us. An award was made on October 31,1956 by the industrial tribunal disposing of the dispute. The award was brought up before this Court by special leave and was set aside on a technical ground. Thereafter the matter went back before the tribunal. In the meantime, however, 33 out of 41 points of dispute referred originally had been disposed of by agreement between the appellant and its workmen. The tribunal therefore dealt with the remaining eight points only in the subsequent proceedings after the order of this Court, of which we are now concerned with only three as indicated above. We propose to deal with each point seriatim and the contentions of the parties will appear as we deal with the points. Before, however, we do so we may dispose of a preliminary point raised on behalf of the appellant, namely, that the appellant had not been given a fair hearing by the tribunal and was therefore unable to place relevant material before it and consequently the matter should be remanded to the tribunal to hear it again after giving an opportunity to the appellant to present its case properly before it.
(2.) In this connection the appellant relied on the order-sheet of the tribunal to show that sufficient opportunity was not given to the appellant to place its case before it. It may be mentioned that the earlier order of this Court was made on August 22, 1958 and thereafter proceedings began before the tribunal in September 1958. A good deal of time thereafter was spent in preliminaries which were settled by the end of November 1958. When the case came up on December 4,1958 before the tribunal, the appellant wanted time on the ground that it proposed to move the High Court in connection with the order of the tribunal of November 7,1958. An adjournment was granted thereupon. As the appellant did not move the High Court the matter was taken up again. Some time was then spent in an effort to arrive at an amicable settlement but this failed. Thereafter there were various hearings which were postponed for one reason or the other till we come to June 25, 1959. on that date the tribunal had before it a petition field by the parties jointly in which it was prayed that the hearing might take place at Japla where the cement factory is situate. Consequently the tribunal adjourned the case for hearing at Japla on June 26. on that day the parties appeared before the tribunal; but an objection was raised by the respondents that there was no proper appearance on behalf of the appellant and in any case the appellant could not be allowed to appear by a lawyer. The tribunal held that the lawyer could not be permitted to appear as the other party was objecting to it. There were two officers of the appellant-company also present; but as objection was taken to their appearance, the tribunal asked them to produce their authority, which they were not able to produce. The tribunal therefore seems to have held, though not in so many words, that they could not properly represent the appellant. Even so it seems from the order-sheet that though the two officers were not strictly entitled to appear on behalf of the appellant the tribunal permitted them to appear. The tribunal also noted that though the matter had been ending since 1954 the appellant was trying for further adjournment to delay adjudication. The tribunal was not prepared to give a long adjournment. Even so, it postponed the case to June 27 to allow the parties to file documentary evidence. on June 27, the parties were present and their representation was as before:but on this date it appears that there was no objection on behalf of the respondents to the appearance of the two officers and so the proceedings went on. The tribunal was not however prepared to allow further time to the parties and fixed July 15, 1959 for written arguments. Eventually after more adjournments the appellant field written arguments on August 24, 1959 while the respondents did not do so. The tribunal then gave the award on September 26,1959.
(3.) On these facts it is submitted on behalf of the appellant that it was not given a fair hearing and had been deprived of the opportunity of placing relevant material before the tribunal; and this is based firstly on what happened on June 26, 1959 on the objection of the respondents as to the authority of the two officers to represent the appellant- and secondly, on the refusal of the tribunal on June 27 to give any further time to the appellant to file further material in support of its case. We are of opinion that though technically the tribunal held that the two officers could not represent the appellant, in fact it appears from the proceedings that the two officers were allowed to represent the appellants both on June 26 and 27, 1959. Further we cannot forget that the main evidence in this case was led on the earlier occasion when the award was made in 1956 and that evidence was accepted by the parties on the second occasion and on the present occasion all that the appellant wanted was to supplement that evidence by a few more documents. Considering that the hearing was being given at Japla where the appellant-company is situate we do not see why it should have been difficult for the appellant to be ready with the material it wanted to produce on June 27. Further as this case had been going on since 1954. we do not think that the tribunal was unjustified in refusing to grant further adjournment and on insisting on the production of whatever material was to be produced within 24 hours. In any case we are not prepared to say that there was not a fair hearing in the circumstances. Nor are we disposed to remand this case for further hearing after this interval of seven years.;