RIVERS STEAM NAVIGATION CO LTD AND ANR Vs. RADHANATH HAZARIKA AND ORS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India in which the Petitioners have prayed for a writ of prohibition or mandamus of any other appropriate writ preventing the Respondents from proceeding with a reference under Sec. 10(1)(c) of the Industrial Disputes Act made to the Industrial Tribunal. The Petitioners are Rivers Steam Navigation Co. Ltd. and India General Navigation and Railway Co. Ltd. They may be compendiously described as Joint Steamer. Companies. The allegations of fact on which the, petition is founded are these:

(2.) The Petitioners state that during all material times uptil 30th June 1956, one S.C. Dutta acted as their labour contractor at Karimganj Steamer Ghat. The relationship between S.C. Dutta and the Petitioners was governed by an agreement, the terms whereof have been embodied in a document dated 31-8-1938 signed by the Managing Agents of the Petitioners on the one hand and S.C. Dutta on the other. It is stated that under the terms of the agreement, the contractor S.C. Dutta employed various persons for handling cargoes at Karimganj Steamer Ghat and the persons so employed by S.C. Dutta worked under the latter and were not the employees of the Petitioners.

(3.) On the 30th May 1956 the Government of Assam issued a notification No. GLR. 232/56 under which it purported to refer an industrial dispute between the said S.C. Dutta, labour contractor and the workmen of Karimganj Steamerghat represented by Karimganj Dock Mazdoor Union to the adjudication of Sri Radhanath Hazarika Respondent No. 1, who was then the Judge of the Industrial Tribunal. The matters in dispute have been specified in the notification and they refer to maundage rates of handling cargoes, the sort of housing and medical facilities and leave rules to which the workers claim to be entitled and the arrangement if any, that should be made by the contractor for the improvement of housing and medical facilities and introduction of leave rules and pay of the chowkidars.