NEW COMMERCIAL MILLS CO LTD Vs. I G THAKORE PRESIDENT INDUSTRIAL COURT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These petitions raise a short but interesting question of law relating to the construction of sec. 66 of the Bombay Industrial Relations Act 1946 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). The facts giving rise to these petitions are identical and may be briefly stated as follows. The Textile Labour Association is a representative Union for the cotton textile industry in the area of Ahmedabad and is registered as such under sec. 14 of the Act. On 22nd June 1949 a registered agreement was entered into between the Textile Labour Association and the Ahmedabad Mill Owners Association which provided various benefits including wage scales for clerks in the cotton textile industry. Clause 5 of the registered agreement provided a separate wage scale for those employees who occupy a position lower than that of a full-fledged clerk but higher than that of an operative and who have come to be known in the cotton textile industry as semi-clerks and that wage scale was Rs. 40-3-70-EB-4-90-5-105. By a further agreement made between the Textile Labour Association and the Ahmedabad Mill Owners Association on 8th August 1958 the registered agreement was modified under section 116 of the Act but the provision made in regard to semi-clerks was left unaffected. Thereafter a further modification was made in the registered agreement by mutual consent of the parties on 2nd July 1960 in order to implement the recommendations of the Wage Board and this time the provision in regard to semi-clerks was modified and as a result of the modification the wage scale of semi-clerks was revised and with a view to removing uncertainty it was laid down as to what work done by an operative should entitle him to be regarded as a semi-clerk. This last provision was added by way of modification of clause 5 of the registered agreement and sub-clauses (1) to (4) of the modified clause S which are the only clauses material for the purpose of the present petitions were in the following terms:-

(2.) The main ground of attack against the decision of the Industrial Court was that the disputes raised in the applications made by the employees before the Labour Court were covered by the submission contained in sub-clause (4) of clause 5 of the registered agreement and this submission being a submission within sec. 66 excluded the jurisdiction of the Labour Court under sec. 78 in respect of these disputes. This contention was based on the premise that it there is a valid submission to arbitration under sec. 66 in respect of an industrial dispute that would oust the jurisdiction of the Labour Court under sec. 78 in respect of such dispute. This premise though conceded on behalf of the employees before the Industrial Court was disputed before us and it was contended that the jurisdiction conferred on the Labour Court under sec. 78 could not be ousted by a mere agreement between parties to refer the industrial dispute to arbitration and that notwithstanding such agreement a party could exercise the statutory right conferred on him under sec. 78 to move the Labour Court for redress. The argument was that what sec. 66 provided was not a statutory arbitration but it merely authorized the parties to enter into an arbitration agreement for referring an industrial dispute to arbitration and the jurisdiction of the Labour Court under sec 78 was therefore not excluded by a submission entered into between the parties pursuant to sec. 66. This contention raised an interesting question of law relating to the construction of the provisions of the Act but in the view we are taking of the matter it is not necessary for us to decide this contention. We will assume for the purpose of the present discussion that a valid submission to arbitration under sec. 66 would exclude the jurisdiction of the Labour Court under sec. 78 in respect of the industrial dispute covered by the submission but the question is whether the disputes raised in the applications were covered by the submission contained in sub-clause (4) of clause 5 of the registered agreement and this submission constituted a valid submission to arbitration within the meaning of sec. 66. The employees contended that on a plain reading of sec. 66 a submission could be made under that section only in respect of an industrial dispute and industrial dispute within the meaning of that section meant a collective dispute between a representative Union and the employer and not an individual dispute concerning the rights of an individual workman which was not taken up by the representative Union and to which the representative Union was not a party and since the disputes raised in the applications were admittedly individual disputes raised by individual employees whose cause was not espoused by the representative Union or workmen as a class they were not industrial disputes and could not form the subject matter of a valid submission to arbitration under sec. 66. This being the position it was argued the submission contained in sub-clause (4) of clause 5 of the registered agreement must be read as inapplicable to such disputes or else the submission to the extent to which it applied to such disputes would not be a valid submission to arbitration under sec. 66 and in either event the jurisdiction of the Labour Court to entertain the applications under sec. 78 would not be ousted. The petitioners agreed that if industrial dispute referred to in sec. 66 meant only a collective dispute between workmen as a class and the employer and did not include an individual dispute concerning the rights of an individual workman which was not taken up by workmen as a class the contention of the employees would be well-founded and the submission contained in sub-clause (4) of clause 5 of the registered agreement would not constitute a valid submission to arbitration in respect of the disputes raised in the applications so as to exclude the jurisdiction of the Labour Court to entertain the applications under sec. 78 but contended the petitioners that was not the correct construction of industrial dispute in sec. 66. Having regard to the object and purpose of the Act and the scheme of its relevant provisions argued the petitioners it would be proper to interpret the expression industrial dispute in sec. 66 in a sense wider than what it bears in the Industrial Disputes Act 1947 so as to cover not only disputes of workmen as a class but also their individual disputes and if that interpretation was accepted as the correct interpretation the disputes raised in the applications though individual disputes would be industrial disputes within the meaning of sec. 66 and the submission contained in sub-clause (4) of clause 5 of the registered agreement would constitute a valid submission to arbitration in respect of those disputes ousting the jurisdiction of the Labour Court to decide those disputes. These were the rival contentions of the parties and it will be seen that the determination of the controversy thus hinged on the narrow question as to what is the true meaning and connotation of the expression industrial dispute in sec. 66.

(3.) Turning first to the definition clause we find that industrial dispute is defined in sec. 2(17) to mean any dispute or difference between an employer and employee or between employers and employees or between employees and employees and which is connected with any industrial matter. Considerable reliance was placed on behalf of the petitioners on this definition by reason of the use of the word employee in the singular and it was contended that the use of the singular showed that an individual dispute was comprehended within the expression industrial dispute as used in the Act. But this contention though apparently plausible has really no substance for it rests on too literal an interpretation of the words used in the definition and ignores several other considerations which must necessarily weigh with the Court in this task of interpretation. In the first place it must be remembered that the use of the word employee in the singular has no particular significance since under sec. 13 of the Bombay General Clauses Act 1904 ....unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context