MAHESH TRANSPORT COMPANY Vs. TRANSPORT AND DOCK WORKERS UNION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal under Article 136 of the Constitution is from an Award dated June 29, 1968 made by the Central Government Industrial Tribunal, Bombay in Reference No. CGIT-73 of 1965. The reference of the Industrial dispute was as follows :

(2.) The Government of India had constituted a Wage Board for the Port and Dock workers of major Ports and this Wage board, by its report, dated April 9, 1965, recommended interim relief. The Government accepted these recommendations and directed that the Port and Dock workers should be paid additional interim relief as recommended by the Board. The respondent workers were not paid the additional relief and hence a dispute was raised on their behalf with their employers. The employers did not co-operate in the Conciliation proceedings with the Labour Commissioner, whereafter, the Government of India referred the dispute to the Industrial Tribunal.

(3.) A number of questions were raised before the Tribunal. But we are not concerned with all of them. Mr. Hardy, who appeared on behalf of the appellants, contested the jurisdiction of the Tribunal to entertain and determine the dispute and argued that the concept of common employment was foreign to Industrial Law and, in particular, the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 and, therefore, the very reference was incompetent u/S. 10 (1) (d) of the Industrial Disputes Act.