D.N.Sinha, J. - (1.) The applicant before me is Messrs, Express Newspapers (Private) Ltd. It is a company incorporated under the Indian Companies Act and has its head office situated in Madras. It has a small branch office in Calcutta. At the branch office in Calcutta, there were four workmen including the respondent No. 4, Ram Deo Dubey. The company dismissed the respondent No. 4 from its service on the 17th day of September, 1956. By an order dated 29-10-1957, the Government of West Bengal referred an alleged industrial dispute to the adjudication of the First Labour Court, Calcutta. The relevant part of the order of reference is as follows : "Whereas an. industrial dispute exists between Messrs. Express Newspapers (Private) Ltd., 7 Lyons Range, Calcutta and one of their workmen Sri Ram Deo Dubey represented by the Calcutta Lower Grade Employees' Union, 249 Bowbazar Street, Calcutta relating to the under-mentioned issues ..... the Governor is pleased hereby to refer the said dispute to the First Labour Court constituted under Notification No... .. ... dated 5-4-1957 for adjudication."
(2.) There were two issues referred, the first being as to whether the dismissal of the respondent No. 4 was justified, and the second being as to what relief he was entitled to. Before the Industrial Court, a preliminary objection was taken on behalf of the company, namely, that the dispute was not an industrial dispute but was an individual dispute and the Union which purported to represent the respondent No. 4 had no locus standi because it was not an Union of Workmen of the company and no workman except respondent No. 4 was at any time a member thereof. The Industrial Court considered the matter and overruled the preliminary objection and upon merits held that the dismissal was not justified. It ordered reinstatement of respondent No. 4 and directed the company to pay him two months' wages as compensation. This award dated 16-4-1958, is challenged before" me. The point taken is that the order of reference is invalid inasmuch as the dispute was an individual dispute between the company and one of its workmen, and the Union which purported to represent the workman concerned, had no locus standi. The way that it has been put before me is as follows : As I have stated above, the petitioner company has its registered office situated in Madras. At Madras, the workmen employed by the company have got a registered Trade Union known as the Express Newspapers Limited Employees' Union. In the Calcutta branch, there are four workmen employed including the respondent No. 4, but there is no Union. The Calcutta Lower Grade Employees' Union is not an union of workmen of the petitioner company. It is an Union of darwans, peons, bearers and similar lower grada employees of all kinds of firms, banks etc., in Calcutta. As I have stated above, only the respondent No. 4 is a member of this Union and no other workman belonging to the petitioner company, either in Calcutta or Madras, has anything to do with this Union. In the order of reference, the respondent No. 4 is said to be represented by the Calcutta Lower Grade Employees' Union. The question is whether this Union can represent the workman concerned, or whether such representation would transform the individual dispute between the company and one of its workmen into an industrial dispute between the company and its workmen. By now, it is firmly settled that an individual dispute between an employer and one of his workmen, is by itself not an industrial dispute which can be referred under Section 10 of the Industrial Disputes Act, but such an individual dispute might be transformed into an industrial dispute, provided that the cause of the particular workman concerned is taken up by a majority of workmen concerned in the particular industrial establishment, or by an Union of such workmen. This aspect of the matter has been dealt with by me in Bengal Club Ltd. v. Santi Ranjan Somaddar. It is unnecessary here to refer to all the decisions which have been dealt with in my judgment. I might at once refer to the Supreme Court decision in D. N. Banerji v. P.R. Mukherjee, wherein Aiyer, J. said as follows : "The words 'industrial dispute' convey the meaning to the ordinary mind that the dispute must be such as would affect large groups of workmen and employers ranged on opposite sides on some general questions on which each group is bound together by a community of interest such as wages, bonuses, allowances, pensions, provident funds, number of workmen, hours per week, holiday and so on. Even with reference to business that is carried on, we would hardly think of saying that there is an industrial dispute where an employee is dismissed by his employer and the dismissal is questioned as wrongful. But at the same time, having regard to modern conditions of society where capital and labour have organised themselves into groups for the purpose of fighting, their dispute and settling them, on the basis of the theory that in unity is strength, and collective bargaining has come to stay, a single employee's case may develop into an industrial dispute when, as often happens, it is taken up by a trade union of which he is a member, and there is concerted demand by employees for redress. Such trouble may arise in a single establishment or a factory. It may well arise in such a manner as to cover the industry as a whole in a case where grievance, if any, passes from the region of individual complaint, into a general complaint on behalf of all the workers in the industry. Such widespread extension of labour unrest is not a rare phenomenon but is of frequent occurrence. In such a case, even an industrial dispute in a particular business becomes a targe-scale industrial dispute, which the Government cannot afford to ignore as a minor trouble to be settled between a particular employer and workman."
(3.) It must be remembered that the word 'industrial dispute' has been defined in Section 2 (k) of the Industrial Disputes Act. An 'industrial dispute' means any dispute or difference between employers and employers, or between employers and workmen, or between workmen and workmen, which is connected with the employment or non-employment or the terms of employment or with the conditions of labour of any particular person. The question is as to whether an Union can take up the cause of a workman and transform it into an industrial dispute if the Union that does so is wholly unconnected with the particular employer or the industry concerned, or where no workman of the employer or the industry concerned, is a member thereof, or if only a very small and insignificant number of its workmen are connected with such Union. I do not find any authority which is absolutely decisive on the point. I must however, deal with certain decisions which have been cited before me. The first case to be considered is a decision of Kapur, J. in Newspapers Ltd. v. State Industrial Tribunal U. P. The facts in this case were as follows : One Tajammul Hussain was employed as a Lino-operator by the appellant company. He was dismissed on allegations of incompetence. It was alleged that his dismissal was welcome by his co-workers and other workmen in the employ of the appellant company and they did not make a grievance of it nor did they espouse his cause. His case was however taken up by the U. P. Working Journalists' Union, Lucknow with which the appellant company had no connection whatsoever. The U. P. Government made a reference to the Industrial Tribunal on 3-6-1953. The reference was of an industrial dispute stated to have arisen between the concern known as Newspapers Ltd., Allahabad and its workmen represented by the U. P. Working Journalists' Union, Lucknow, the dispute being as to whether the service of Tajammul Hussain Lino-operator, was wrongfully terminated by the management of the comnany, In stating the facts the Beamed Judge said as follows: "The case of respondent No. 3 was not taken up by any Union of workers of the appellant company nor by any of the Union of workmen employed in similar or allied trades but the U. P. Working Journalists' Union Lucknow, with which the respondent No. 3 had no connection whatsoever took the matter to the Conciliation Board, Allahabad.";