WORKMEN OF INDIAN TELEPHONE INDUSTRIES LIMITED Vs. INDIAN TELEPHONE INDUSTRIES LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Government of Mysore have referred two points of dispute between the workmen and the management of the Indian Telephone Industries, Ltd., Bangalore-16. They are :

(2.) The parties filed the claim statement and the rejoinder respectively and other issues were settled arising out of those pleadings. Three of those issues were argued as those relate to questions of law and no questions of facts are involved. They are as follows :

(3.) The workmen claimed profit-sharing bonus for the years 1964-65 and 1965-66 at the rate of 15 percent and 20 percent of their average annual earnings in addition to their existing production bonus and the reference is whether that claim is justifiable in accordance with the Payment of Bonus Act and if not, what is the amount of profit-sharing bonus the workmen are entitled to. It is not dispute that, in the years 1964-65 and 1965-66, the Payment of Bonus Act was in force, but the contention put forward by the learned counsel for party 1 is that the Act does not apply to the public sector undertakings and admittedly the Indian Telephone Industries, Ltd., Bangalore, is a public sector undertaking. There is a specific provision under the Payment of Bonus Act under S. 32 that nothing in the Payment of Bonus Act shall apply to employees employed by any establishment in public sector, save as otherwise provided under this Act. The saving section is S. 20 under which the provisions of the Payment of Bonus Act will apply to the public sector establishments if that establishment sells any goods produced or manufactured by it or renders any service, in competition with an establishment in private sector and the income from such sale or services or both is not less than 20 percent of the gross income of the establishment for that years. Hence it follows that ordinarily a public sector establishment is not covered by the Payment of Bonus Act unless in certain particular circumstances referred to under S. 20. The learned counsel for party 1 argued that non-competitive public sector industrial undertakings are not covered by the Payment of Bonus Act, and therefore, the industrial law relating to bonus will apply to them. He mentions that in this case it will not be necessary to go into the applicability of S. 20 of the Payment of Bonus Act and that the bonus payable to the employees of party 2 may be determined on the basis of the industrial law prevailing today other than the Payment of Bonus Act.