Bijayesh Mukherji, J. - (1.) The workmen of the Cardboard Box Manufacturing Company, represented by the General Secretary of the Mazdoor Union thereof, have obtained this rule under Article 227 of the Constitution, calling upon the Company and the First Industrial Tribunal to show cause why the award entered by the latter on April 2, 1964, and published in the Calcutta Gazette on April 30 following, under Section 17 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 14 of 1947, should not be set aside.
(2.) Of the three issues referred to the Tribunal for adjudication, the first one is on the propriety of dismissal of 10 workmen, including one Sadhan Das. Mr. Dhar, appearing for the petitioning Union, does not press the rule, so far as Sadhan is concerned. Of the remaining nine, what Mr. Dhar contends for is this: These nine workmen, while working in the Cossipore factory of the Company, were ordered on July 8, 1963, to join the Madhyamgram factory of the Company on July 9, 1963 - which they did not do, with the result that they were dismissed, after a domestic inquiry, in the usual way. The Tribunal finds: A. A notice as this is too short. B. Monthly railway tickets were not provided for the workmen, in defiance of the terms of the tripartite settlement. The Tribunal no doubt directs the workmen to be reinstated, but refuses them compensation for the period of their forced unemployment. In so doing, the Tribunal goes wrong. Because under Rule 10, clause (b), sub-clause (i), of the Standing Orders, exhibit 2, a workman may be dismissed, if he is guilty of disobedience to any lawful and reasonable order of a superior officer. The order of transfer, found by the Tribunal to be infirm for two reasons: (i) shortness of the notice and (ii) non-supply of monthly railway tickets, is neither lawful nor reasonable. Why deprive then these nine workmen of compensation for the period of their forced unemployment?
(3.) Mr. Bhattacharyya appearing for the Company opposite party, says that all these nine workmen have been reinstated without any break in their service. If that is so, here is an end of the dispute. But Mr. Dhar's contention is deserving of an answer. And there appears to be more than one answer. First: the rule to be called in aid here is not the general rule about disobedience to any lawful and reasonable order - the rule Mr, Dhar wants me to go by - but the special rule embodied in sub-clause (xxiii), clause (b), Rule 10, of the Standing Orders, providing inter alia that a workman may be dismissed, if he is guilty of - "refusal to comply with transfer orders from one work to another........................ provided such transfer does not adversely affect his wages." The transfer is not shown to have adversely affected their wages. Therefore, the general provision in sub-clause (i), clause (b) of Rule 10, cannot prevail over the special provision about refusal to comply with transfer orders (just the matter here) as contained in sub-clause (xxiii), clause (b) of Rule 10. Second: working in a particular factory, where the company has more factories than one, cannot be pleaded as a condition of service, which indeed it is not. Third: a workman does not comply with the order of transfer at his peril, landing him in misconduct and voluntary abandonment of service: Central Bank of India, Ltd. v. Meenakshisundaram, A.I.R. 1959 SC 55 . Fourth: the Tribunal, it is true, finds fault with the company for having given so short a notice and for having not provided the workmen under orders of transfer with monthly tickets. But the Tribunal does not stop there. It does not spare the workmen either: they should have, the Tribunal observes, joined the Madhyamgram factory after having taken reasonable joining time and asked for railway tickets, instead of having flouted the orders. It is difficult to discern here any error apparent on the face of the record or anything coming on the edge of the principles of natural justice. And then how far is Madhyagram from Cossipore? Not very. Fifth: to order a transfer is one of the essential functions of the management which should be left untrammelled to do what it thinks fit, provided, of course, an order as this is not actuated by bad faith. The charge of bad faith is not simply here. Sixth: in view of all that goes before, I would not call the orders of transfer here as unreasonable, far less unlawful, open to this criticism or that, though they may be. So, even Rule 10, clause (b), sub-clause (i), of the Standing Orders cannot rid the nine workmen of disobedience to lawful and reasonable orders of transfer.;