INDIAN OIL CORPORATION LTD Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) CAN the High court in its discretionary writ jurisdiction altogether ignore and thus override the prior dismissal in limine of the identical lis by their lordships of the Supreme Court under Art. 136 of the Constitution, has come to be the spinal issue at the very threshold in this set of two connected civil writ jurisdiction cases.

(2.) BECAUSE of the view I am inclined to take on the aforesaid issue, it is wholly unnecessary to recount the facts in any great detail. Equally irrelevant it is now to advert to the long and chequered history of the dispute betwixt the petitioner management of the Indian Oil Corporation and its employee (respondent No. 3)Sri C. D. Singh, Assistant Manager. Suffice it to mention that a reference under S. 10 (1) (c) of the industrial Disputes Act was made by the State of Bihar on the 26th September, 1980 for the adjudication of the following question:

(3.) AGAINST the aforesaid award the petitioner management directly moved their Lordships of the Supreme Court under Art. 136 of the Constitution of India, Petition for Special Leave to appeal (Civil) No. 9147 of 1983 was preferred on its behalf on the 14th July, 1983. It is common ground that respondent No. 3 had earlier filed a caveat before the Hon'ble Supreme Court after the impugned award of the Labour Court, Patna was rendered. Consequently a copy of the special leave petition was served on the counsel of respondent No. 3. It is the case of respondent no. 3 that identical points were raised in the exhaustive special leave petition (Annexure 'a' to the counter-affidavit) running into 28 typed pages as are now sought to be raised in the present writ petition. A detailed counter-affidavit to this special leave petition was filed on behalf of respondent No. 3 on the 5th September, 1983. Thereafter the special leave petition came up for hearing before their Lordships of the Supreme court on the 9th September, 1983. After hearing counsel of both the parties on the merits of the case, their Lordships dismissed the same in limine and the relevant part of the order (Annexure 'b' to the counter-affidavit) is as under: