- (1.) Heard Ms. Kiran Suri, learned Counsel for the Appellant in support of this petition and Mr. Raghupathy, learned Counsel appearing for the Respondent Trade Union.
(2.) This special leave petition seeks to challenge the judgment and order dated 16.12.2009 rendered by a Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court in Writ Appeal No. 1382/2009 whereby the writ appeal filed by the Respondents was allowed, and the order passed by the learned Single Judge of the High Court dismissing Writ Petition No. 4529/2009 filed by the Respondent was set aside.
(3.) The short facts leading to the present special leave petition are this wise: The Respondent No. 1 is a Trade Union registered under the Trade Unions Act, 1926 and was representing the workmen of the industrial concern known as Mysore Panel and Boards Pvt. Ltd. This company closed down its manufacturing activities sometime in January, 2002, leaving some 83 workmen jobless. Consequent upon the closure of the said company, there were various statutory and legal dues of the workmen, and for that purpose they filed Applications under Section 33-C of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 as well as under the Payment of Gratuity Act. Those applications were allowed by the concerned authorities. Thus, one Application was allowed by order dated 4.3.2005 for a claim of Rs. 4,71,781/-, another Application was allowed by the order dated 30.8.2005 for a claim of Rs. 16,66,585/- and the third Application filed under the Payment of Gratuity Act was allowed by order dated 13.9.2005 for a sum of Rs. 7,78,696/-, resulting into total dues of Rs. 29,17,062/-. Having waited sufficiently, the Respondent Trade Union wrote to the Deputy Commissioner of the Mysore District, Mysore by its letter dated 28.8.2008 seeking recovery of these amounts.;