J.K. Tandon, J. - (1.) The petitioner company is carrying on the business of manufacture and sale of cotton textiles in the town of Kanpur. Sri Ram Swarup Khare, respondent No. 3, is an employee of the said company. He was working at the post of Employees' State Insurance Clerk in the office of the company until 24th September, 1957 when he was transferred from that post to the post of Size-Mixing Clerk. The two posts were on the same scale of pay and Sri Khare was to continue to draw the same wages on this new post. At the time when his transfer was so ordered, an industrial dispute, being adjudication case No. 12 of 1957, was already pending before the Industrial Tribunal in respect of allowance for additional work claimed by workmen, including Sri Khare, for the post of Employees' State Insurance Clerk. The workmen's claim was that by reason of adding of the third shift, which the mill started sometime earlier, their work load had increased and they were entitled to an allowance.
(2.) On the 27th of September, 1957, Sri Khare applied to the Industrial Tribunal before which the above industrial dispute was pending that he had in contravention of Section 6-E of the U. P. Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, been served with a transfer order which was unjust and improper and affected his condition of service adversely. He asked the same to be set aside and requested to be reverted to his earlier post. The Tribunal then issued a notice to the petitioner company which in its written statement denied that there had been any alteration in the conditions of service. They also maintained that the transfer order was legal and bona fide and had been made under the ordinary power of management. The above complaint by Sri Khare was then treated as a separate case and the Tribunal, after hearing the parties, held that the transfer order had been made to bring pressure on Sri Khare to desist from espousing the cause of clerks, and further that the transfer order adversely affected the conditions of service applicable to him immediately before the commencement of the original dispute.
(3.) Here it may be noted that the adjudication case No. 12 of 1957, by which the dispute regarding payment of additional allowance was raised, was decided in the meantime and according to the award given in that case an allowance was attached to the post of Employees' State Insurance Clerk. The award given in this other case also thereupon directed the payment of allowance to Sri Khare, though he had in the meantime been transferred from that post. It has further directed that he shall be kept on a post which carried a similar allowance for so long as the system for additional work in third shift was in operation in the mill and the award in adjudication case No. 12 of 1957 continued in force. The Mills feeling aggrieved by the said award have come up to this Court by this petition.;