NATIONAL POWER SUPPLY CORPORATION LTD. Vs. STATE OF ASSAM AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner, the management of the National Power Supply Corporation, Ltd., carries on business of supply of electric power in Dhubri. In connexion with the dismissal of one Hirendra Nath Bhattacharjee, an employee of the petitioner at the branch office at Dhubri, an industrial dispute arose which was referred by the State Government by its order dated 13 February 1959, to the presiding officer of the labour court for adjudication. The reference was numbered as Reference No. 10 of 1959. During the pendency of the aforesaid industrial dispute, the opposite party 3 to the present petition -Goalpara Zilla Electric Supply Workers' Union, Dhubri -made an application before the labour court under Section 33A of the Industrial Disputes Act, in which it was alleged that Benode Behari Kar, Nihar Kanta Chakraborty, Nepal Chandra Ghosh and Nagina Much, all workmen of the petitioner, who are opposite parties 4 to 7 to this petition respectively, were dismissed during the pendency of the aforesaid reference in violation of the principles of natural justice for their trade union activities. The petitioner raised before the labour court several preliminary objections as to the maintainability of the petition. But the labour court gave its award on merits and repelled the preliminary points raised by the petitioner.

(2.) THE contention raised by the petitioner is that as the petitioner had raised by a separate application certain preliminary points before the labour court, the labour court should have disposed of those preliminary issues first and thereafter should have given an opportunity to the petitioner to substantiate their case on merits after holding that the preliminary points had no force. As the labour court disposed of the preliminary point and the merits of the application by one award, the petitioner was deprived of his opportunity to produce evidence which would have established that the dismissal of the workman was justified. In support of the contention reliance is placed on the language of Section 33A of the Industrial Disputes Act (hereinafter called " the Act") which reads as follows:

(3.) IN my judgment there is no force in this contention. The labour court before giving any relief to the employee under Section 33A has to find out first that there has been a contravention of the provisions of Section 33. The contravention of the provisions of Section 33 is the foundation for the exercise of the power to adjudicate upon the dispute. But the section does not contemplate two distinct and separate stages in the inquiry and the labour court was not bound under Section 33A to decide the preliminary issue first and thereafter proceed to inquire into the merits after giving fresh opportunity to the parties to adduce evidence. On the facts of the present case it does not appear from the award that the petitioner was in any way prejudiced and the petitioner had no opportunity to adduce evidence in support of their case. Reference is made by the counsel for the petitioner to the case of Equitable Coal Company, Ltd. v. Algu Singh, 1958 I L.L.J. 793 and reference is made to the following passage p. 795: