SINHA, J. - (1.) THE petitioner is the Burma Shell Oil Storage and Distributing Company of India Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the 'Company') which deals in petroleum and petroleum products. It maintains a large clerical staff. At all material times prior to 1947, the Company in addition to paying its clerical employees their normal remuneration, and in addition to crediting their provident fund accounts with a normal contribution equivalent to 10 per cent, of their basic salaries, further credited annually to their provident fund accounts, a bonus equivalent to 7 1/2 per cent, of their basic salaries earned during the year. Such bonuses became available to the employees upon the retirement.
(2.) WITH effect from 1 -1 -1947, the Company Introduced a non -contributory pension scheme, by virtue of which the retiring clerical employees received substantial pensions in addition to the amounts standing to their credit in the provident fund accounts. The Company, however, discontinued the crediting of bonuses to the provident fund accounts, inasmuch as the pensions were found to be a greater and more valuable benefit than the bonuses previously paid. In other words, from 1947 onwards the clerical employees enjoyed the benefits of pension but no bonus. In March 1949, the clerical employees, through their trade union, the opposite party No. 3 (hereinafter called the 'Association') made a demand for bonus. As the company did not concede this demand there developed an industrial dispute, which was, by an order of reference dated 19 -8 -1949, referred for adjudication to an Industrial Tribunal under the Industrial Disputes Act 1947. The Tribunal was constituted by Sri Asutosh Das Gupta. In their statement of case filed before the Tribunal, the employees claimed payment by way of bonus, retrospectively from 1947. On 2 -2 -1950, Sri Das Gupta made his Award. On the point of bonus he gave the following directions ; 'I accordingly direct that the Company shall pay each and every clerk one -twelfth of his basic yearly earning as bonus, provided the trade conditions do not substantially deteriorate from the present position. This payment shall be made a fortnight before the Puja.' This direction has correctly been construed as meaning that the Tribunal rejected the claim for retrospective bonus for 1947. That this was an acknowledged fact appears from the minutes of a meeting held jointly between the company and its employees on 23 -3 -1950. The relevant part may be quoted hereunder : 'Bonus. The Association stated that although under the Award no bonus was payable in respect of any year prior to 1949 (the first bonus being payable a fortnight before the Puja in 1950) they would request the company to pay an extra bonus for 1947 and 1948. The company regretted their inability to deviate from the the Award and confirmed that bonus in respect of 1949 would be paid a fortnight before the Puja in 1950 as laid down in the Award.' In fact, payment was accepted in terms thereof. In July 1951, the employees through the Association made fresh demands which repeated the claim for bonus for 1947 -48 and additional bonus for 1949 and 1950.
(3.) BY an order of reference dated 17 -4 -1952, the Government of West Bengal referred the disputes for adjudication to an Industrial Tribunal consisting of Sri P.B. Mukherjee. The disputes that were referred were : 1. Bonus for the years 1947 and 1948. 2. Claim for additional bonus for 1950, The reason why the employees were re -agitating the question of bonus since 1947 was that, subsequent to the adjudication by Sri Das Gupta, bonuses for that period seem to have been awarded in the case of similar industrial disputes in Bombay and Madras. Sri Mukherjee inter alia stated as follows : 'The main pillar of argument on the part of the employees is that the sister companies like Standard Vacuum, Caltex and other branches of Burma Shell at Madras and Bombay are paying higher bonus and this should be a standard on which the bonus at Calcutta branch should be brought on a par with the rate of bonus granted outside this province by this Company & their sister concerns. So far as the comparison of sister concerns with the present company is concerned, I must say that this comparison cannot be allowed on any good principle of justice and equity. Each company is a separate unit having separate condition of service..... I therefore do not feel inclined to engraft the decision regarding bonus by Bombay and Madras ...... Moreover, the Company had an early pension scheme for male members of Indian Provident Fund, the intention being to provide more security fop old age of members of staff to the Indian Provident Fund by a definite scheme offering greater security under a non -contributory pension scheme. Accordingly the contribution in lieu of bonus had been paid by the Company and as such the claim of bonus for 1947 -48 must be rejected. Regarding claim of bonus for the years 1947 -48 there had been a claim in Union's written statement dated 5 -9 -1949 before Sri Das Gupta previously. This claim was rejected and cannot now be revived and agitated afresh. Moreover, claim for past years' bonus cannot on principle be allowed as the budget and finances were all previously adjusted and granting of earlier bonus of 3 or 4 years will create difficulty in adjusting the budgets. It is significant that in the charter of demands in March 1949 there had been no demand for bonus of 1947 -48 presumably because, the above position was accepted and contribution by the company in lieu of bonus to the provident fund had been accepted without demur'.;