V. R. Krishna Iyer, J. - (1.) Affirming judgments need not speak elaborately, and so, in these two appeals where we do not disagree with the High Court, only a brief statement of reasons in called for.
(2.) The subject-matter is a bouns dispute between the management-respondent and the workmen union revolving round the applicability of the proviso to S. 3 of the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) for the years 1964-65 and 1965-66. A thumbnail sketch of the facts: The K. C. P. Limited, a public limited company, carries on three business adventures, viz., manufacture of sugar, of cement and of heavy engineering machinery. The concerned factories are in three different places in South India and employ workmen on different terms in three different units. We are directly concerned with the engineering unit known as the Central Workshop run at Tiruvottiyur, Madras. When the Payment of Bonus Act. 1965 came into force the workmen of this unit, which was financially faring ill unlike the other two sister units, demanded bonus on the footing that the three different undertakings must be treated as one composite establishment and on the basis of the overall profits. bonus must be reckoned as provided in the Act. The respondents demurred on the ground that the Central Workshop was a separate undertaking to which the proviso to Section 3 applied and consequently the claim for bonus on the basis of a single establishment was untenably over-ambitious. Although the concerned unit was perhaps a losing proposition for the relevant years, (we do not know for certain) the Tribunal upheld claim of the workmen for both the years, but the two awards were challenged, by Writ Petition, in the High Court. The award relating to 1964-65 was upheld by a Single Judge of the High Court who took the view that since all the three units, though divergent and located in different places, were owned by the same company and, therefore, without more, were covered by the main part of S. 3 and the proviso stood repelled. Two other questions, which had engaged the attention of the Tribunal, were scantily dealt with, the findings, if one may call them so, being adverse to the workmen. The management duly carried an appeal before a Division Bench of that Court which also called up and heard the writ Petition against the award relating to the year 1965-66. Both the awards were set aside, the holdings on the substantial points being adverse to the workmen. However certain follow-up inquiry had to be done by the Tribunal to correct errors, for which limited purpose there was a direction by the High Court. The matter stood at that stage and the two appeals in this Court are aimed against the decision of the Division Bench of the High Court.
(3.) The first point that appeals to the learned Single Judge, but failed before the Division Bench, has admittedly no merit in the light of this Court"s direct ruling on the point.;