- (1.) The petitioner is a limited company manufacturing sugar by using vacuum pan process. It employs two categories of wokmen, one permanent and the other seasonal. An industrial dispute arose about the amount of privilege and casual leave to be granted to some workmen of both these categories, who are all clerks in the instant case, employed by the petitioning company. Altogether fifty-nine workmen were involved in the two cases in which References Nos. 69 and 70 of 1962, to the Industrial Tribunal, Allahabad, under the U. P. Industrial Disputes Act, were made by the U. P. Government. The same question having arisen in both the cases the common question referred, decided by one award, was framed as follows : "Should the employers be required to allow 30 days' privilege and 10 days' casual leave in a year to their workmen named in the Annexure If so, with effect from what date and with what other details - The four workmen named in the annexure to Reference No. 69 of 1962 were all alleged to be permanent clerks Fifty out of the fifty-five workmen named in the annexure to Reference No. 70 of 1962 were said to be seasonal and five were alleged to be permanent clerks.
(2.) The Tribunal pointed out that the case of the Labour Unions was that fifty- seven workmen from the clerical staff of the petitioning company had been getting 30 days' privilege and ten days' casual leave in a year, whereas the 59 clerks concerned in two cases were only granted leave on the following scales : I. Permanent clerks Privilege leave 1 day for every 20 days' work, sick leave 10 days in a calendar year, casual 6 days in a calendar year. II. Seasonal clerks Privilege leave 1 day for 20 days' work, sick leave day in a month and casual leave day in a month. The workmen's case was that this amounted to unjustifiable discrimination in favour of the class of fifty-seven workmen belonging to the same category who had been given thirty days' privilege leave and ten days casual leave in a year as against the fifty- nine clerks named in the two cases who were given less leave on a lower scale.
(3.) With regard to permanent clerks the case of the petitioning company before the Tribunal was that only workmen employed before the Factories Act of 1948, which came into force on 1-4-1949, were given the more liberal scale of leave by it because Section 78 of the Factories Act entitled them to the benefit of pre-existing agreements or contracts of service under which the Company used to allow the more liberal scale. The Company's case was that other permanent workmen, not so favoured, were entitled only to the benefits of Section 79 of the Factories Act as provided by Standing Orders No. 5436 (ST) XXXVI-A-208 (ST) 58 dated 3-10-1958. These Standing Orders were said to be the result of a tripartite agreement arrived at between the representatives of workmen and the employers of sugar factories and the Government.;