INDIAN IRON AND STEEL CO LTD Vs. TREOGI NATH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from an order making absolute Rule directing the Second Labour Court to hear and determine an application presented to it under Section 33-C(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act.

(2.) The matter arises thus: By an award of the Fifth industrial Tribunal published on September 19, 1959 forty one persons, the petitioners before this Court, who had been dismissed from service by the two respondent companies were directed to be reinstated in service and held entitled to half their salary for the entire period from October 2, 1953 to the date of their actual return to duty after the award. The respondent companies appealed unsuccessfully first to the Appellate Tribunal and then to the Supreme Court. Orders for stay of operation of the award obtained by them during the pendency of the appeals were ultimately vacated on October 15, 1957. According to the petitioners they had offered to resume their duties immediately after the publication of the award of the Fifth Industrial Tribunal but the companies refuses to take them in until the dismissal of the appeal by the Supreme Court. According to the companies the petitioners newer offered to resume their duties prior to October 15, 1957 and were not entitled to do so by virtue of the orders for stay of operation of the award. This led to a difference between the parties as to the amounts due to the petitioners on the basis of the award. The petitioners applied to the Second Labour Court, West Bengal, for the determination of the amounts due to them. The companies raised a preliminary objection as to the Jurisdiction of the Labour Court In the matter. The short point taken by the companies was that in the absence of an order specifying the Second Labour Court as a Court for computation of benefits mentioned in Sub-section (2) of Section 33-C of the Industrial Disputes Act the said Court was not competent to hear the application of the petitioners and determine or compute the amounts, if any, due to them. The objection was upheld by the Labour Court wife the result that the petitioners moved this Court by in application under Article 226 of the Constitution for the issue of an appropriate writ directing the Second Labour Court not to give effect to the order made by it on February 15, 1961 upholding the preliminary objection as to jurisdiction raised by the companies. The Rule which was issued by a learned single Judge of this Court was ultimately made absolute and the companies have come up in appeal.

(3.) The provisions of Sub-sections (1) and (2) of Section 33-C contained in Chapter VII of the Act are as follows: