Full Judgment Text
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PETITIONER:
THE SAWATRAM RAMPRASAD MILLS CO. LTD.
Vs.
RESPONDENT:
BALIRAM UKANDAJI AND ANOTHER
DATE OF JUDGMENT:
09/09/1965
BENCH:
HIDAYATULLAH, M.
BENCH:
HIDAYATULLAH, M.
GAJENDRAGADKAR, P.B. (CJ)
WANCHOO, K.N.
SHAH, J.C.
SIKRI, S.M.
CITATION:
1966 AIR 616 1966 SCR (1) 764
CITATOR INFO :
R 1972 SC 451 (22)
D 1987 SC1960 (6)
ACT:
Industrial Disputes Act (14 of 1947), ss. 25 J, 31 and 33C-
State Act applicable to industry-Application for
compensation for lay off-Jurisdiction to decide.
HEADNOTE:
The respondents, who were the workmen of the appellant,
applied to the Second Labour Court, Bombay, under s. 33C(1)
of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, claiming compensation
for lay-off during a certain period. The appellant
contended that : (i) the Labour Court had no jurisdiction as
the dispute fell to be tried under the C.P. and Berar
Industrial Disputes (Settlement) Act, 1947; and (ii) the
application under s. 33C was incompetent, because, it was
not a claim for money due and calculations had to be made
for ascertaining the money due. The Labour Court, as well
as the High Court under Arts. 226 and 227 of the
Constitution. rejected the contentions.
In -the appeal to this Court.
HELD : (i) The argument that the controversy was wrongly
before Labour Court was entirely erroneous.
Chapter V-A of the Industrial Disputes Act, which was
inserted by s. 3 of the Industrial Disputes (Amendment) Act,
1953, is the only Chapter in which there is provision
regarding lay off or compensation for lay off. Though the
C.P. and Berar Act applies to the textile industry, it
contain* no provision either for recovery of money or for
compensation for lay off and they are not matters over which
the C.P. and Berar Act has any jurisdiction. Therefore,
if a workman has a claim for lay off, it can only come up
for decision under the Industrial Disputes Act. Even if
ss. 31 and 25J save the application of the C.P. and Berar
Act, they do so, subject to the condition that the question
of lay-off must be decided in accordance with Chapter V-A.
Since s. 33C provides that a dispute for any money due under
Chapter V-A has to go before the appropriate Government or
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its delegate, and since the delegate is the Second Labour
Court, the respondents were entitled to go before the Labour
Court to realise due from the appellant under Chapter V-A.
[769 F]
(ii) It is not essential that the claim which can be brought
before the Government or its delegate under s. 33C(1) most
always be for a predetermined sum. [769 G-H]
Kays Construction Co. (P) Ltd. v. State of U-P. & Ors.
[1965] 2 S.C.R. 276, followed.
JUDGMENT:
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 525 of 1964.
Appeal from the judgment and order dated August 25, 1962 of
the Bombay High Court (Nagpur Bench) at Nagpur in Special
Civil Application No. 360 of 1961.
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A. S. Bobde G. L. Sanghi and Sardar Bahadur, for the
appellant.
Janardan Sharma for respondent No. 1.
H. W. Dhabe and A. G. Ratnaparkhi, for the intervener.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
Hidayatullah, J. In this appeal by certificate against the
judgment of the Bombay High Court dated August 25, 1962 the
appellant is the Sawatram Ramprasad Mills Co., Ltd., Akola
and the respondents two of the workmen of the Mills. The
respondents are claiming from the Mills compensation for lay
off from March 5, 1960 to October 22, 1960. The proceedings
were commenced by an application to the Second Labour Court,
Bombay under s. 33C(1) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947
(Act XIV of 1947). The Mills objected on various grounds
including firstly that the Second Labour Court had no
jurisdiction to hear the case as the dispute fell to be
tried under the C.P. & Berar Industrial Disputes
(Settlement) Act, 1947 and, secondly, that the application
under s. 33C, in any event, was incompetent. The Second
Labour Court held against the Mills on both the grounds.
The Mills applied to the High Court of Bombay under Arts.
226 and 227 of the Constitution but by the judgment under
appeal their application was dismissed. It may be pointed
out here that there were similar applications for com-
pensation for lay off by the other workmen of the Mills and
on this preliminary point they were all heard together.
In this Court only these two grounds were urged. The con-
tention on behalf of the Mills on the first ground was two-
fold. The Mills attempted to establish that the dispute
could not be tried under the Central Act but only under the
C.P. & Berar Act and further that even if the Central Act
applied the calculation of the amount could not be made
under s. 33C of the Industrial Disputes Act as that required
proceedings other than those contemplated by that section.
The Industrial Disputes Act was passed in 1947 and was
brought into force on April 1, 1947. It is not disputed
that it applied to the Textile Industry. The C.P. & Berar
Industrial Disputes (Settlement) Act (23 of 1947) came into
force on June 2, 1947 but only the first section was then
brought into force. Later, the remaining sections were
brought into force by a notification dated November 20, 1947
in all industries except the Textile Industry. From March
1, 1951, the Act was also,
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made applicable to the Textile industry. In 1953 the
Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 was amended by Industrial
Disputes (Amendment) Act, 1953. The changes material to our
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purpose were the addition of two definitions and a new
chapter in the Act. Previous to the Act there was an
Ordinance which the Act replaced but as nothing turns upon
the existence of the Ordinance we need not refer to it. The
two definitions introduced in s. 2 of the parent Act were :
"(kkk) ’lay-off’ (with its grammatical
variations and cognate expressions) means the
failure, refusal or inability of an employer
on account of shortage of coal, power or raw
materials or the accumulation of stocks or the
break-down of machinery or for any other
reason to give employment to a workman whose
name is borne on the muster rolls of his
industrial establishment and who has not been
retrenched :
Explanation-Every workman whose name is home
on the muster rolls of the industrial
establishment and who presents himself for
work at the establishment at the time
appointed for the purpose during normal work-
ing hours on any day and is not given
employment by the employer within two hours of
his so presenting himself shall be deemed to
have been laid-off for that day within the
meaning of this clause:
Provided,
and s. (oo) ’retrenchment’. The definition of
’retrenchment’ need not be quoted here because no question
has been raised about retrenchment in this case. Section 3
of the 1953 Amendment Act inserted Chapter V-A headed "Lay
Off and Retrenchment". Section 25C gave a right to a
workman to ask for compensation if laid off, provided he
fulfilled certain conditions. It is not necessary to go
into those conditions here. Section 25J then provided as
follows :
"25J. Effect of laws inconsistent with this
Chapter.-
(1) The provisions of this Chapter shall
have effect notwithstanding anything
inconsistent therewith contained in any law
including standing orders made under the
Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act,
1946 (XX of 1946) :
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Provided that nothing contained in this Act
shall have effect to derogate from any right
which a work-man has under any award for the
time being in operation or any contract
with the employer.
(2) For the removal of doubts, it is hereby
declared that nothing contained in this
Chapter shall be deemed to affect the
provisions of any other law for the time being
in force in any State in so far as that law
provides for the settlement of industrial
disputes, but the rights and liabilities of
employers and workmen in so far as they relate
to lay off and retrenchment shall be
determined in accordance with the provisions
of this Chapter."
In 1956 the Industrial Disputes Act was again amended by the
Industrial Disputes (Amendment and Miscellaneous Provisions)
Act, 1956. Section 23 of the Amending Act inserted section
33C which reads as follows :
"33-C. Recovery of money due from an
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employer.-
(1) Where any money is due to a workman from
an employer under a settlement of an award or
under the provisions of Chapter V-A, the
workman may without prejudice to any other
mode of recovery, make an application to the
appropriate Government for the recovery of the
money due to him, and if the appropriate
Government is satisfied that any money is so
due, it shall issue a certificate for that
amount to the Collector who shall proceed to
recover the same in the same manner as an
arrears of land revenue.
(2) Where any workman is entitled to receive
from the employer any benefit which is capable
of being computed in terms of money, the
amount at which such benefit should be
computed may, subject to any rules that may be
made under this Act, be determined by such
Labour Court as may be specified in this
behalf by the appropriate Government, and the
amount so determined may be recovered as
provided for in sub-section (1).
(3) For the purposes of computing the money
value of a benefit, the Labour Court may, if
it so thinks fit, appoint a commissioner who
shall, after taking such evidence as may be
necessary, submit a report to
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the Labour Court and the Labour Court shall
determine the amount after considering the
report of the Commissioner and other
circumstances of the case."
The -powers of the Government under the above
section admittedly have been delegated to the
Second Labour Court Bombay. Section 31 of
this Amending Act provides as follows
"31. Act not to override State laws.
(1) If, immediately before the commencement
of this Act, there is in force in any State
any Provincial Act or State Act relating to
the settlement or adjudication of disputes,
the operation of such an Act in that State in
relation to matters covered by that Act shall
not be affected by the Industrial Disputes
Act, 1947, as amended by this Act.
(2)
From these sections, which we have quoted, certain conclu-
sions indisputably arise. The first conclusion is that
compensation for lay off can only be determined under
Chapter V-A of the Industrial Disputes Act. This follows
from s. 25J(2) as it is so stated there. The next is that
the workmen are entitled under s. 33C(1) to go before the
Second Labour Court to realise money due from their
employers under Chapter V-A. This is clearly stated in s.
33C. The contention on behalf of the Mills, however, is
that the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 does not apply to the
present matter but the C.P. & Berar Industrial Disputes
(Settlement) Act does. This argument is put in two ways.
By one argument the application of the Industrial Disputes
Act is sought to be evaded and by the second the C.P. &
Berar Industrial Disputes (Settlement) Act is sought to be
applied. We shall examine these two arguments in the same
order. The attempt to oust the Central Act is based upon s.
31 of the 1956 (Amendment) Act and the opening part of s.
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25J. Section 31 can have no application because s. 33C has
been included for the purpose, among others, of enabling the
workmen to claim any money due from their employers under
the provisions of Chapter V-A. This is expressly so stated
in that section. Chapter V-A is the only Chapter in which
there is provision regarding lay off or compensation for lay
off. The C.P. & Berar Act contains no provision either for
the recovery of money or for compensation for lay off. It
is thus obvious that
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if a workman has a claim for lay off it can only come up for
decision under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 and,
indeed, s. 25J(2) says so in express terms. The attempt to
keep out the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act,
particularly Chapter V-A and s. 33C must, therefore, fail.
The next attempt, namely, that the C.P. & Berar Act applies
is also ineffective. It is pointed out that the preamble of
the C.P. & Berar Act shows that it was an Act for the
promotion of peaceful and amicable settlement of industrial
disputes by conciliation and arbitration, that ’industrial
disputes’ means any dispute or difference connected with an
industrial matter arising between an employer and an
employee or between employers or employees and that
’industrial matter’ means any matter relating to pay, wages,
reward, etc. It is submitted, therefore, that the dispute
must come under the C.P. & Berar Act because of S. 31 of the
1956 (Amendment) Act and S. 25J of the 1953 (Amendment) Act
already quoted. The argument is the last one in another
form. This argument is fallacious at the very start because
lay off and compensation for lay off are to be found only in
Chapter V-A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. There is
no mention of lay off or compensation for lay off as one of
the matters over which the C.P. & Berar Act has any
jurisdiction. Next, even if ss. 31 and 25J save the
application of the C.P. & Berar Act they do so subject to
the condition that question of lay off must be decided in
accordance with Chapter V-A and S. 33C clearly provides that
a dispute for any money due under Chapter V-A has to go
before the appropriate Government or its delegate. Here the
delegate is the Second Labour Court, Bombay. The argument
that this controversy is wrongly before the Second Labour
Court, Bombay is, therefore, entirely erroneous and must be
rejected.
The next contention is that the claim for lay off is not a
claim for money due because calculations have to be made
before the money due can be found. This argument has been
considered on more than one occasion and it was rejected
recently by this Court in Kays Construction Co. (P) Ltd. v.
State of U.P. & Ors(1). It is not essential that the claim
which can be brought before the Government or its delegate
under S. 33C(1) must always be for a predetermined sum. The
Government or the Labour Court may satisfy itself about the
exact amount and then take action under that section. In
the present case the dates of lay off are known and each
workmen will show to the Second Labour Court that he is
qualified to receive compensation for
1. [1965] 2 S.C.R. 276.
up.C165-6
770
lay off. That will be shown from the muster roll which the
employer is required to maintain and it will then be a
simple arithmetical calculation which, in our judgment, s.
33C permits to be made. If there is any question whether
there was lay off or not the Labour Court will decide it.
This argument, therefore, has no force.
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The result is that the appeal must fail and is dismissed
with costs. The employers have. by prolonging this
litigation on a preliminary point, managed to avoid the
trial of the real issue for a number of years and we hope
that the Second Labour Court will now deal with this matter
as expeditiously as possible.
Appeal dismissed.
771