MANAGEMENT NATIONAL PRODUCTVITY COUNCIL Vs. S N KAUL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question arising for decision in this Letters Patent Appeal against the judgment of T.V.R. Tatachari, J. dated 23rd January, 1968, may be formulated as under: Where an employee is dismissed or discharged or his services terminated before the enactment of Section 2-A of the Industrial Disputes Act on 1-12-1965, can a dispute arising out of such dismissal or discharge etc. be referred to a Labour Court under section 10 for adjudication even though the cause of the Workman is not supported by other workmen. The facts have been set out in detail in the order of the learned Single Judge and it is unnecessary to elaborate on the same. I will only confine any statement of facts within a very narrow compass.

(2.) Respondent S. N. Kaul was employed as a Press Operator by the appellants on December 5, 1960. According to Kaul his services were arbitrarily and illegally terminated by the management of the National Productivity Council (hereafter referred to as 'the appellants') on March 9, 1964. By amendment in the Industrial Disputes Act Section 2A was incorporated therein on 1st December, 1965. Kaul is alleged to have approached the Chairman of the Appellants on several occasions but was finally informed on November 26, 1965 that his case for re-instatement could not be considered. He, therefore, served a notice on the appellants through his lawyer on January 23, 1966, which was ignored. Conciliation proceedings took place but having proved ineffective, the Delhi Administration made the following reference to the Labour Court :-

(3.) On a preliminary objection by the appellants, the Labour Court decided that the amendment in the Industrial Disputes Act was not retrospective and employees dismissed or discharged after the coming into force of section 2A could alone avail themselves of the said provision. The Labour Court, therefore, came to the conclusion that in the absence of espousal by other workmen the dispute did not acquire the status of an industrial dispute and it had, therefore, no jurisdiction to adjudicate upon the same. Kaul filed a writ petition in this Court challenging the said award of the Labour Court dated 26th October, 1966. The matter was heard by T.V.R. Tatachari, J. who held that the individual dispute between Kaul and the appellants became an industrial dispute on 1st December, 1965, by reason of section 2A of the said Act, the said industrial dispute was existing on 8th June, 1966, when the reference was made to the Labour Court, the reference was valid in law and the Labour Court had jurisdiction to entertain and adjudicate upon the same. The appellants have filed the present appeal against the order of T.V.R. Tatachari, J. and Mr. A. R. Lal, the learned counsel for the appellants, contended that a workman is not entitled to the benefit of section 2A unless the dismissal, termination etc. takes place after coming into force of section 2A, for to hold otherwise would result in giving a retrospective effect to the section which it does not possess. Though there is no direct decision on the point, yet some judgments of the Supreme Court provide guidance in the matter and I will now refer to those. In Newspapers Ltd. v. State Industrial Tribunal the Supreme Court construed the provisions of the U. P. Industrial Disputes Act and held that though the use of the word "workmen" in the plural in the definition of "industrial dispute" did not by itself exclude the applicability of the Act to an individual dispute, yet the Act, construed as a whole, led to the conclusion that its applicability to an individual dispute, as opposed to a dispute involving a group of workmen, was excluded unless it acquired the general characteristics of an industrial dispute, viz. the workmen as a body or a considerable section of them made common cause with the individual workman and thus created conditions contemplated by section 3 of the U.P. Act. It appears that faced with this probM4HCD/69-3 lem section 2A was inserted in the Industrial Disputes Act, which reads-