S.P.Bharucha, J. - (1.) the appellant is the Karnataka electricity board, for the sake of convenience we shall refer to it as "the board". The second respondent is the amalgamated electric company limited which used to supply electricity to belgaum prior to its takeover; we shall refer to it as the erstwhile company. The first respondents are certain workmen of the erstwhile company. The third respondent is the industrial tribunal.
(2.) the erstwhile company employed the 12 concerned workmen as meterreaders. On 5th march, 1971, they were issued charge-sheets by the erst while company which stated that, until august, 1970, they had been doing the programme work of taking down and reporting in meter cards the motive power meter readings of consumers situated in the areas allotted to them for taking meter read ings.they had stopped doing such work since the september-october, 1970 programme and had not informed the management of the erstwhile company of the reasons for not doing this work. The charge-sheet alleged that the workmen were guilty of illegal stoppage of the work allotted to them, which was a misconduct under clause 22(b) of the applicable standing orders. The workmen replied to the charge-sheet on 9th march, 1971 and stated that it was true that, prior to july, 1970, they were, on many occasions, coerced to do the concerned work although it was no part of their duly as meter readers. It was also true that they had stopped reading and recording motive power meters since the september-october, 1970 programme, but it was not true that they had not informed the management of the reasons for so doing. The president of the belgaum workers union had informed the management in his letter dated 12th august, 1970, that all workmen of the erstwhile company, including the meter readers, had adopted a 'work to rule' policy. Since it was not a part of their duty as meter readers to read motive power meters the workmen had not been doing this work since the september-october, 1970 programme. According to the rules, this work had to be done by supervisors and none of them was a supervisor. Hence they had not. Committed any misconduct whatsoever, much less misconduct within the meaning of clause 22(b) of the standing orders. The erstwhile company then instituted a departmental enquiry against the workmen, which proceeded ex-pane, the enquiry report held that the charges against the workmen were established. The findings were accepted and the erstwhile company, on 16th april, 1971, dismissed the workmen from its service. Since the workmen were concerned in an industrial dispute pending on the file of the national industrial tribunal, dhanbad, the erstwhile company sought, under Section 23(2)(b) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (hereinafter referred to as "the said act"), approval of such dismissal. The approval was accorded and the dismissal of the workmen was confirmed.
(3.) the workmen raised an industrial dispute which, on 21st july, 1972 came to be referred to the industrial tribunal, Bangalore. The reference was heard and the tribunal passed on order holding that the reference was not bad in law because of the approval granted by the national industrial tribunal to the dismissal of the workmen on principles analogous to res judicata. It also held that the disciplinary enquiry which had been conducted by the erstwhile company was bad in law because there was no evidence in those proceedings or in the proceedings before the national industrial tribunal to show "the terms of the contract of service or its character and the position of the parties..........in the absence of such evidence the stoppage of reading motive power meters by the first party workmen, who are admittedly meter readers, it is not possible to term such an act as illegal. It is only the illegal stoppage on the part of the employees that amounts to misconduct under standing order 22 (b) of the standing orders. The ii party management has not placed any material before the enquiry officer in the domestic enquiry that the stoppage of reading and recording motive power meters by the first party workmen is contrary to the terms of the contract of service, or its character and the position of the parties.";