VAIDIALINGAM, J. - (1.) IN this appeal, by special leave, Mr. A. C. Mitra, learned counsel for the management appellant, challenges the award, dated 22 January, 1965, of the Industrial Tribunal, Bihar, accepting a complaint, filed by the respondent, under S.33A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (Act XIV of 1947) (hereinafter called the Act).
(2.) A request, made by the workmen of the appellant company, that carbide drums should be sold to them at concessional rates, was considered by the Works Committee, on 27 June, 1961 and acceded to by the company's representatives, who were present at the said meetings, along with the workers' representatives, by expressing the company's willingness to sell carbide drums at concessional rates, once a fortnight, subject to availability of drums. It was also recorded at the said meeting of the Works Committee that not more than one drum, at a time, would be sold to an employee, at a reasonable interval. A copy of the minutes so recorded, is Ext. C-2. The company published a notice, Ext. B-2, on 12 July, 1961, indicating the price of the various types of drums, which would be distributed, twice a month, and that the sale to an individual employee would be on the understanding that the purchase was for his personal and private use. Sometime later, a complaint was filed under S. 33-A, by some of the workmen of the appellant company, before the Industrial Tribunal, Bihar alleging that the appellant company was guilty of contravention of Ss.9A and 33 of the Act. According to those workmen, the sale of drums, by the management, at a concessional rate, to the workmen, had become a part of their conditions of service, and that the company has committed a breach of the condition, by refusing to sell carbide drums at concessional rates, To sustain their complaint, the workmen relied on Exts. B-2, and C-2, referred to above. The claim of the workmen, in short, was that they always had been getting drums, at an interval of a fortnight, according to their requirements, and this condition, which has become a part of their conditions of service, was not being acted upon by the management.
(3.) THE management, on the other hand, resisted the claim of the workmen. They pleaded that the sale of empty carbide drums, to the workmen, was really a matter of concession, and what was noted in the minutes of the works Committee, Ext. C-2, was in no sense a condition of service. The management further pleaded that the complaint under S. 33 was not maintainable, inasmuch as they has not altered any condition of service, applicable to the workmen, much less any condition of service, in regard to any matter connected with I.D.N. 32/63, which was pending adjudication.;