MANAGEMENT OF CHANDRAMALAI ESTATE ERNAKULAM Vs. ITS WORKMEN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) , J. : On 9/08/1955, the Union of the workmen of the Chandramalai Estate submitted to the Manager of the Estate a memorandum containing fifteen demands. Though the Management agreed to fulfil some of the demands the principal demands remained unsatisfied. On 29/08/1955, the Labour Officer, Trichur, who had in the meantime been apprised of the position by both the management of the Estate as well as the Labour Union advised mutual negotiations between the representatives of the management and workers. Ultimately the matter was recommended by the Labour Officer of the Conciliation Officer Trichur for conciliation. The Conciliation Officer's efforts proved in vain. The last meeting for Conciliation appears to have been held on 30/11/1955. On the following day the Union gave a strike notice and the workmen went on a strike with effect from 9/12/1955. The strike ended on 5/01/1956. Prior to this, on January 5, the Government had referred the dispute as regards five of the demands for adjudication to the Industrial Tribunal, Trivandrum. Thereafter by an order dated 11/06/1956, the dispute was withdrawn from the Trivandrum Tribunal and referred to the Industrial Tribunal, Ernakulam. By its award dated 17/10/1957, the Tribunal granted the workmen's demands on all these issues. The present appeal has been preferred by the management of the Chandramalai Estate against the Tribunal's award on three of these issues. These three issues are stated in the reference thus :

(2.) ARE the workers entitled to get cumbly allowance with retrospective effect from the date it was stopped and what should be the rate of such allowance?

(3.) ON the question of excess price of rice having been collected the appellant's contention before us is limited to the question of fact, whether the Tribunal was right in its conclusion that more than cost price was realised. The Tribunal has based its conclusion as regards the price realised by the management on entries made in the management's own documents. As regards what such rice cost the management it held that for the months of April, July and August and September the price was shown by the management's documents while for May and June these documents did not disclose the price. For these two months the Tribunal held the market price of rice as proved by the workers' witness No. 6 to have been the price at which the Estate's management procured their rice. We are unable to see anything that would justify us in interfering with these conclusions of facts. Indeed the documents on which the Tribunal has based its conclusion were not even made part of the Paper-Book so that even if we had wanted to consider this question ourselves it would be impossible for us to do so. We are satisfied that the Tribunal was right in its conclusions as regards the cost price of rice to the management and the price actually realised by the management from workmen. The management's case that the workmen were charged only the cost price of rice has rightly been rejected by the Tribunal. The fact that workmen were not compelled to purchase rice from the management is hardly material; the management had opened the shop to help the workmen and if it is found that it charged excess rates, in fairness, the workmen must be reimbursed. The award in so far as it directed refund of the excess amount collected on the basis of the figures found by the Tribunal cannot therefor be successfully challenged.