- (1.) These suo motu contempt proceedings have arisen out of a reference dated 12.01.2009 sent by the Presiding Officer of Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court-II, Gurgaon, inter alia, alleging that during the course of hearing of a labour dispute titled as Jai Dayal v. IST, the respondent-contemnors out of whom the two are father and son and both of them are practicing Advocates and the third (Puran Chand) is a workman in Reference No.745 of 2002 (Puran Chand v. M/s. Raghubir Machinery), started misbehaving with the Presiding Officer in a manner that the allegations if proved to be true shall amount to obstructing the process of administration of justice and lowering the dignity of Court within the meaning of Section 2(c) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 (in short, 'the Act').
(2.) The indignified language, gesture and the insulting behavior attributed to the respondent-contemnors need not be referred to at this stage, as the short question that we propose to decide pertains to the preliminary objection against maintainability of these contempt proceedings as according to the respondents the "Labour Court-cum- Industrial Tribunal" is not a 'Court' nor is it subordinate to the High Court within the meaning of Section 10 of the Act. The first respondent, PS Rao, Advocate and the counsel representing other respondents, vehemently contended that these proceedings are liable to be dropped as the Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court neither possesses trappings of a judicial Tribunal nor is it a Forum to deliver definitive judgements which have finality and authoritativeness.
(3.) The respondents supported their contentions relying upon the decisions in (i) The Bharat Bank Ltd., Delhi v. The Employees of the Bharat Bank Ltd., Delhi and the Bharat Bank Employee s Union Delhi, 1950 AIR(SC) 188; (ii) (The) Alahar Co-operative Credit Service Society v. Sham Lal, 1995 2 GLH 550 (iii) Muljibhai Bhurabhai v. Upendra Vyas, 2000 4 RCR(Cri) 796; (iv) Mahavir Prasad v. Naresh Kumar and others, 1993 CrLJ 1314; (v) Shri Thakur Singh Rawat and Ors. v. KS Jaiswal and Anr., 2005 84 DRJ 142 .;