EMPLOYERS IN RELATION TO BHOWRA COLLIERY Vs. WORKMAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellants, the Bhowra Kankanee Coal Co. Ltd., own the Bhowra and other collieries. On the Bhowra Colliery there are a number of residential bungalows belonging to the appellants occupied by their officers employed in the colliery. The appellants employ certain malis for working as such in these bungalows and their duty is to look after and maintain the gardens there. A dispute arose between the appellants and their workmen as to whether these malis, who were fourteen in number, were entitled to bonus. By an order made on June 23, 1959, under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, the Government of India referred this dispute along with another with which we are not concerned in this case, for adjudication to the Industrial Tribunal, Dhanbad. The Points referred concerning the dispute abovementioned were in these terms :

(2.) The points so referred were decided by the Tribunal against the appellants by an award made on December 7, 1959, and the present appeal is against that award.

(3.) Till January 1, 1955, the Bhowra and certain other collieries managed as a group, were owned by the Eastern Coal Company Ltd., and on that date these collieries were sold to the appellants. At the time when this sale was being arranged, the workmen in these collieries raised a dispute that their services should be treated as continuous inspite of the transfer of the collieries from one owner to another by the sale and that the conditions of their service and the facilities which they were enjoying under the previous owners should be guaranteed and continued by the succeeding owners, that is the appellants, after the latter took over the collieries. At the instance of the Conciliation Officer appointed under the Act this dispute was settled by an agreement made on January 14, 1955, to which the Conciliation Officer the workmen the previous owners and the appellants were parties, Paragraph 3 of this agreement provided as follow :