JAFFAR IMAM Vs. CALCUTTA DOCK LABOUR BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These three appeals raise a common question of law and have accordingly been heard together and are disposed of by this judgment.

(2.) Two of the appeals Nos. (22 of 1959 and 30 of 1959) by Jaffar Imam and Jambu Patra respectively are from orders of Sinha, J. made under Article 226 of the Constitution refusing Writs of Certiorari to remove to this Court and quash orders of termination of their services made by the Deputy Chairman and affirmed on appeal by the Chairman of the Calcutta Dock Labour Board. The other appeal (No. 29 of 1959) by Brindaban Nayak is brought from the order of P.B. Mukherji, J. summarily dismissing an application for a similar Writ in respect of a similar order made against him by the same authority.

(3.) The three appellants were dock workers attached to the Port of Calcutta and registered in the Reserve Pool. They were taken into preventive detention under an order of the Commissioner of Police, Calcutta made on the 12th August, 1955. Despite the representation made by each of them to the Advisory Board appointed under the Preventive Detention Act, they were kept in detention for a period of about eleven months. After release, they applied for allocation to registered dock employers, but instead of orders being made in their favour, proceedings were commenced calling upon them to show cause why their services should not be terminated on fourteen days' notice in terms of Clause 36(2) (d) of the Calcutta Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) Scheme, 1951, on the ground that they had been detained for acts prejudicial to the maintenance of public order. The appellants showed cause against the proposed orders but the Deputy Chairman of the Calcutta Dock Labour Board terminated their services on December 17, 1956 on giving them fourteen days wages in lieu of notice for the equivalent period. Thereafter, each of them took an appeal to the Chairman of the Dock Labour Board who by an order dated April 4, 1957 dismissed the appeals.