M.K. Mukherjee, J. - (1.) Pijus Kanti Ghosh, the respondent No. 4 (hereinafter referred to as the 'workman') was an employee of the General Electric Company of India Limited ('company for short), the petitioner No. 1 herein. The company dismissed him from its services on October 26, 1981. The respondent No. 3 thereafter raised an industrial dispute in respect of his dismissal and ultimately the Government of West Bengal by its order dated December 27, 1983 referred the following issue to the Fifth Industrial Tribunal, West Bengal, for adjudication: "Whether the dismissal of Sri Pijus Kanti Ghosh with effect from 26.10.1981 is justified? What relief, if any, is he entitled to?"
(2.) Before the Tribunal the respondent No. 3 filed an application under Section 15(2)(b) of the West Bengal Industrial Disputes (Second Amendment) Act, 1980 ('Act' for short) praying for grant of interim relief to the workman which was opposed by the company. After hearing the parties, the learned Tribunal, by his order dated 16.3.1988 allowed the said application and directed the company to pay to the workman, at the rate of 50% of his monthly wages for the first 90 days from the date of hisdismissal and thereafter 75% for the subsequent period till the disposal of the reference, subject to his giving a written undertaking duly supported by an affidavit that the amount to be received by him on account of interim relief will be repaid by him to the company if the case was decided ultimately against him. Aggrieved by the above order, the Company and one of its shareholders have filed the instant writ petition.
(3.) In the writ petition various grounds were taken challenging the order granting interim relief to the workman including vires of the Act. At the time of hearing, however, Dr. Pal appearing for the writ petitioner, in his usual fairness, did not agitate those grounds except one. The ground so agitated, was that the Tribunal could have at best granted interim relief to the workman from the date of the reference and not from the date of his dismissal. According to Dr. Pal, the Tribunal assumed jurisdiction to decide the reference on and from the date it was made and consequently it could not have granted interim relief under Section 15(2)(b) of the Act from a date anterior to it. Dr. Pal submitted that the opening words of Sub-section (2) of Section 15 made the position abundantly clear. To appropriate the above contention of Dr. Pal, it will be profitable at this stage to refer to Section 15(2) of the Act. The said section so far as it is relevant for our present purpose reads as under:- "15(2) - Where an industrial dispute has been referred to a Labour Court or Tribunal under Sub-section (1) of Section 10, it shall,- (a)............ (b) after hearing the parties to the dispute, determine, within a period of sixty days from the date of order referring such industrial dispute or within such shorter period as may be specified in such order, the quantum of interim relief admissible, if any: Provided that the quantum of interim relief shall, in the case of discharge, dismissal or retrenchment of a workman from service or termination of service of a workman, be equivalent to the subsistence allowance admissible under the West Bengal Payment of Subsistence Allowance Act, 1969 (West Bengal Act XXXVIII of 1969)";