P G TEXTILE MILLS PVT LTD Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner company challenges in this petition under Arts. 226 and 227 of the Constitution the order of the Central Government dated April 15 1974 under sec. 19A of the Employees Provident Fund Act 1952 denying infancy benefits to the petitioners new establishment.

(2.) The short facts which have given rise to this petition are as under :

(3.) As labour was vitally affected by the decision in this matter the representative union was ordered to be impleaded at their instance and so it is joined as respondent No. 4 in this petition. During the course of hearing of this petition respondent No. 4 union which is the sole mouth piece of all the cotton textile employees in the Baroda region under the Bombay Industrial Relations Act 1946 and which had its members to the extent of 1466 out of the total number of 1537employees of the petitioner company had considered the entire legal position. In view of the settled legal position which would be immediately referred the representative union adopted the safer and wiser course of settling this matter by collective bargaining with the employer and accordingly a registered agreement has been arrived at in pursuance to the notice of change in this connection on October 21 1974 It was duly registered under the Bombay Industrial Relations Act 1946 by the Registrar on October 22 1974 A slight modification was done in clause 3 to point out the relevant considerations which were kept in mind by the representative union and the employer while settling this question and accordingly this agreement was modified on October 24 1974 and even the modification is now registered by the Registrar on October 28 1974 It has been stated in that modified clause 3 that having regard to the aforesaid dispute and also because of exemption granted to Anil Synthetic Limited Ahmedabad in similar circumstances by the Central Government and also because of the doubtful legal position in view of the Supreme Court decision in 1970(1) S.C.C. 50 (N.S.S. Co-operative Society AIR 1971 SC. 82) and also with a view to maintain the harmonious relations between the management and employees and preserve industrial peace that the parties had agreed that the petitioner company shall give the benefit of provident fund scheme made under the provisions of the Act to all those employees who had completed 240 days on or before December 31 1973 calculated as per the provisions of the said Act and the Scheme from January 1 1974 The representative union has filed an affidavit pointing out how all the elected representatives numbering 61 had unanimously arrived at this agreement in the best interests of the employees. Some of the disgruntled workers who appear to be wholly ill-advised as is usually the case in case of such collective bargaining have now appeared before us and Mr. J. G. Shah had protested against this agreement being approved by this Court. Before we go into that question we will consider the whole question on merits as per the settled legal position.