- (1.) THIS batch of writ petitions and appeals has been posted for hearing before a Full Bench on a reference made by a Division Bench owing to doubts raised at the Bar about the correctness of the decision of the Division Bench of this Court consisting of Ismail and Palaniswami JJ. in Coimbatore Municipality v. Thiruvenkatasami. (I. L. R.- 1973-1 Mad. 405 : 87 L. W. 462) in view of the decisions of the Supreme Court in U. P. State Electricity Board v. Hari Shankar Jain [1978-II L. L. J. 399] Bhiwandiwala v. State of Bombay [1961 - II L. L. J. 77], Nagpur Corporation v. Its employees [1960-I L. L. J. 523] Dr. Devendra M. Surti v. State of Gujarat [1969-II L. L. J. 116 etc. The three common questions which arise for consideration in these may be set out as follows :- 1. Whether the Electrical undertaking of a Municipality will be an industrial establishment within the meaning of the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 (hereinafter referred to as the standing Orders Act) and if so, whether the provisions of the Standing Orders Act and the Model Standing Orders thereunder, are applicable to the workmen therein ? 2. Whether a Department of a Municipality like its electrical undertaking, forming part of the entire municipal administration, can be subjected to the provisions of the Standing Orders Act ? and 3. Whether the provisions of the Standing Orders Act will prevail over the provisions of the Tamil Nadu district Municipalities Act, and the rules framed thereunder in their applicability to such municipal electrical undertakings ?
(2.) THE facts may now be broadly, yet briefly, noticed. The petitioners in these writ petitions and the appellants in the writ appeals, who were employed in the electrical undertakings of the then Coimbatore and Madurai Municipalities (now Corporation) and Thanjavur Municipality claiming that they were workmen under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, and that the municipal electrical undertakings would be 'industrial establishments' within the meaning of the State Orders Act, challenged the validity of the notices issued to them by the Municipalities intimating that they will have to retire on the completion of 55 years. According to them, to the municipal electrical undertaking in which they were working, Standing Order 21 of the Model Standing Orders under the Standing Orders Act applied so that they could remain in service in the municipal electrical undertakings till they attained 58 years. This was resisted by the electrical undertakings on the ground, among others, that the petitioners in the writ petitions and the appellants in the writ appeals are not workmen, that the municipal electrical undertakings will not be industrial establishments within the meaning of the Standing Orders Act and the provisions of the Standing Orders Act would not at all apply and therefore, the benefit of the extension of the age of superannuation to 58 from that prescribed, viz, 55, cannot be availed of. Reliance was placed by the municipal electrical undertakings in support of this (sic) contention upon the decision of the Division Bench in the Coimbatore Municipality, rep. by its Commissioner, Coimbatore v. K. Thiruvenkatasami (supra ).
(3.) NORMALLY, these matters should have been dealt with and disposal of applying the decision in the Coimbatore Municipality rep. its Commissioner. Coimbatore v. K. Thiruvenkatasami (supra ). However, before the Division Bench which initially dealt with these matters, counsel submitted that certain vital facts and other relevant considerations touching upon the question whether these municipal electrical undertaking would be industrial establishments for purposes of the applicability of the Standing Orders Act, had not been placed before the Division Bench in the Coimbatore Municipality, rep. by its Commissioner, Coimbatore v. K. Thiruvenkatasami, (supra) and that those aspects would necessitate a consideration of the correctness of the decision. Further, according to learned counsel certain decisions of the Supreme Court having a material (sic) bearing upon the questions that arise for consideration these matters were not brought to the notice of this Court when the decision in the Coimbatore Municipality, rep. by its Commissioner, Coimbatore v. K. Thiruvenkatasami (supra), was rendered. In view of these submissions, the matters were directed to be posted before a Full Bench and that is how they have come up before us.;