SUBODHCHANDRA HIMATLAL Vs. I G THAKORE PRESIDENT INDUSTRIAL COURT GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The only point canvassed at the hearing of this petition is about the constitutionality of sec. 95 of the Bombay Industrial Relations Act 1946 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) which provides for review of a decision or award of an Industrial Court. The petitioners who are the employees of the opponent Mills had obtained an order in their favour both from the Labour Court as well as from the Industrial Court in appeal for compensation for loss in wages suffered by them on account of the fact that they were not given work on certain days in 1957 by the opponent Mills. The opponent Mills preferred an application for a review of the order of the Industrial Court under sec. 95 of the Act and in these proceedings for review the petitioners raised a preliminary objection that the Industrial Court had no jurisdiction to review its order as sec. 95 of the Act was unconstitutional and void as it violated Art. 14 of the Constitution of India. A Full Bench of the Industrial Court decided the question against the petitioners and the Industrial Court then allowed the review application and set aside its previous order and dismissed the claim of the petitioners for compensation. The order of the Full Bench declaring sec. 95 of the Act as constitutional and the final order granting the review have been challenged in this petition.

(2.) Art. 14 of the Constitution of India provides that the State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws. The effect of this provision is to prohibit discrimination and partial legislation in favour of particular persons as against others in a like condition and in similar circumstances. Equality before the law connotes equal justice to all and generally speaking this article in the Constitution may be violated by the withholding of equal access to Courts or by inequality of treatment in the matter of enforcement of rights as the right to equal access to Courts is a natural corollary to the equal protection clause. This clause no doubt therefore forbids invidious discrimination but it cannot he said that it always requires identical treatment for all persons without recognition of differences in relevant circumstances. It is also wellsettled that classification will not render a statute unconstitutional so long as it has a reasonable basis having a reasonable and just relation to the object of the particular enactment and every state of facts sufficient to sustain the distinction can reasonably be pointed out or examined as having existed when the enactment was brought on the statute-book.

(3.) Bearing these general principles in mind let us examine the contention of Mr. Daru learned advocate of the petitioners that sec. 95 of the Act infringes Art. 14 of the Constitution of India. It was contended that sec. 95 makes unfair discrimination between an employer and an employee inasmuch as it does not permit an individual employee to apply for review of a decision or award of the Industrial Tribunal-whereas it confers such a right on an employer. According to Mr. Daru such a discrimination in favour of a class is unfair and cannot be justified on a reasonable ground. Throughout the Act it was contended wherever the procedure in pursuit of a remedy in regard to matters falling under Schedule III of the Act or in regard to standing orders and proceedings relating thereto is prescribed an individual worker has been given the right to act and resort to the remedy without the intervention of the representative Union or body. Neither sec. 79 of the Act which relates to commencement of proceedings before a Labour Court nor sec. 84 which provides for an appeal to the Industrial Court from the decision of a Labour Court requires that an application to the Labour Court or an appeal to the Industrial Court should be made through the Union. But sec. 95 of the Act restricts the right to apply for a review of the decision of the Industrial Court to an employer or an association or a group of employers or a registered union only and according to Mr. Daru there is nothing to justify such a discriminative restriction.