- (1.) JUDGEMENT This writ petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution has been filed by Messrs. Imperial Electric Trading Co. of Aligarh, to challenge an order dated 6th November, 1963, passed by the Industrial Tribunal (II), Allahabad.
(2.) THE petitioner is a partnership concern carrying on the business of manufacture and sale of electrical goods in the name and style of Messrs. Imperial Electric Trading Co. (hereinafter called the company). The company has alleged and the same has not been denied that it produces electric table lamps, wall and ceiling fittings, out of brass circules, pipes, electric wires, switches, glass and plastic shades purchased and imported from outside and that it does not carry on any moulding or casting of any metal goods in the factory. The total number of workers employed by the company at the material time was 25, who had formed themselves into a union known as Imperial Electric Trading Company Workers Union, sometimes in 1956; and the said union was registered with the Registrar of Trade Unions, U. P., Kanpur. Sometimes in 1961 this union made radical amendments to its constitution and changed its name to Dhatu Udyog Mazdoor Sangh, Aligarh (hereinafter referred to as D.U.M.S. In this union all workers employed in the metal industries of Aligarh were entitled to join. According to the allegation of the petitioner company, one Chandra Bhan, the Secretary of D.U.M.S., filed an application before the Additional Regional Conciliation Officer, Aligarh, on 7th March, 1963, chiming two months bonus for each workman of the company for the year 1961-62. The company filed objections contending, inter alia, that the D.U.M.S or its secretary were incompetent to raise any dispute with regard to the petitioners workmen, inasmuch as the D.U.M.S. represented the workmen of the metal industries only. As no settlement could be arrived between the petitioner and the D.U.M.S., the State of Uttar Pradesh by a notification No. 613 (LC)/XVIII-LA-33 (ARG)/1963, dated 9th August, 1963, referred the following matter for adjudication to the Industrial Tribunal (II), U. P., Allahabad. "Should the employers be required to pay bonus to their workmen for the year 1961-62 (ending on October 28, 1962)? If so, at what rate and with what other details?" When the Tribunal took cognizance of the dispute, the petitioner raised a preliminary objection to the effect that the D.U.M.S. was not entitled to sponsor the dispute on behalf of the workmen of the petitioner company and as such the reference itself was incompetent. The company challenged the jurisdiction of the Tribunal to adjudicate upon the reference made by the State of Uttar Pradesh. The D.U.M.S. filed its written statement through one Chander Singh, its Joint Secretary. At the request of the company the Tribunal proceeded to decide the preliminary objection before embarking on the adjudication of the dispute which related to the payment of bonus. The Tribunal framed the following two issues on the preliminary objections of the company: "(1) Is the Dhatu Union Mazdoor Sangh, Aligarh, competent to sponsor the case of the workmen concerned? If not, what is its effect? (2) Have the workmen espoused their own cause properly? After the parties had filed their written statement and led other evidence, the Tribunal by its order dated 6th November, 1963, rejected the preliminary objection. It is against this order of the Tribunal that the present writ petition is directed. The Tribunal has accepted the fact that the members of the D.U.M.S. are the workers employed in Metal Industries of Aligarh, but it has expressed the opinion that the petitioner company can also be said to be engaged in metal industry inasmuch as it employs metal as its raw material. According to the Tribunal, it is the raw material employed which would determine the nature of the trade rather than the finished goods produced by the company. The D.U.M.S. was, therefore, competent to take up the cause of the workers of the petitioner company. The Tribunal has further held that the workmen of the petitioner company had espoused their own cause and mat D.U.M.S. was merely representing them which it was competent to do under S. 6-I(3) of the U. P. Industrial Disputes Act.
(3.) THE view taken by the Tribunal on both the issues is manifestly erroneous. In order that a dispute between an employer and its workmen may assume the nature of an industrial dispute, it is necessary that the dispute must be sponsored by the union of the workers of the company concerned or by a union of the workers employed in a similar or allied trade. If these conditions do not exist, any dispute between any employer and its workmen would be only an individual dispute which cannot be referred by the State Government for adjudication under the Industrial Disputes Act (See Newspapers Ltd. v. State Industrial Tribunal, U. P., AIR 1957 SC 532.) In that case also the matter had been taken up by the U. P. Working Journalists Union, Lucknow, with which the workers concerned had no concern whatsoever and the matter was not taken up by any union of the workers of the company concerned or by any of the employees of similar or allied trades. The Supreme Court in that case quashed the award which had been affirmed by the Labour Tribunal and had been upheld by a Division Bench of this Court on appeal from the decision of a learned Single Judge. The decision of this Court in J. K. Cotton Manufacturers Ltd. v. U. P. Government, AIR 1960 All 734, is also to the same effect. There also a dispute between an employee of the J. K. Cotton Mills, Kanpur, concern engaged in the manufacture of textile, (sic) was taken up by a trade union called the Kanpur Mechanical and Technical Workers Union. It was held that the Kanpur Mechanical and Technical Workers Union was not competent to take up the dispute on behalf of a worker of a textile mill. ;