DALMIA DADRI CEMENT LTD Vs. AVTAR NARAIN GUJARAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by special leave against the award of Industrial Tribunal, Punjab, Jullundur, dated April 16, 1959, made in Reference No. 40 of 1958. The appellant is a Public Limited Company engaged in the manufacture of cement. On April 8, 1955, the appellant and its workmen entered into an agreement Ex. A-6, settling the matters in dispute between them and fixing inter alia grades of several categories of workmen and their scales of wages. The agreement provides that the settlement should be binding on both the parties for a period of two years commencing from April 8, 1955 but that the Union would have the right to move for reconsideration of the grades, if that was recommended by the Government, Wage Board.

(2.) IT is common ground that the Union terminated this agreement as from April 8, 1957, in accordance with Section 19 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, hereinafter referred to as "the Act" and then made a demand on the management for revision of the agreement in respect of the grades of the workmen and certain allowances. On May 19, 1957, the appellant and the Union referred their disputes to the decision of two arbitrators but as they could not agree they wrote to the Government of Punjab on August 30, 1957, to refer the matter to the Industrial Tribunal, as an umpire. Before any action was taken on this, both the parties applied to the Punjab Government on April 5, 1958, under Section 10(2) of the Act for referring the disputes to a Tribunal, and on July 24, 1958, the Government referred them to the Industrial Tribunal, Punjab, Jullundur, for adjudication under Section 10(1)(d) of the Act. The Tribunal pronounced its award on May 8, 1959, and being dissatisfied with it, the appellant has preferred this appeal against the same with the leave of this Court.

(3.) ON the very principle of it, this decision, can have application only where there is an adjudication by the Tribunal on the merits.