CHAIRMAN CUM MANAGING DIRECTOR NATIONAL TEXTILES CORPORATION LIMITED Vs. N T C WBAB AND O LIMITED EMPLOYEES UNION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Various textile mills in the country came to be vested in the Central Government by virtue of the provisions under Section 3(1) of the Sick Textile Undertakings (Nationalization) Act, 1974. The Central Government transferred all such mills to the National Textile Corporation Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as NTC) which was brought into existence for this purpose. Under Section 5 of the said Act the liability towards wages, salaries and other dues of workers of such mills after the takeover of management by the Central Government, is that of the Central Government.

(2.) The issue involved in these cases is regarding the claim of the staff/sub-staff engaged by the various textile mills under the NTC for equal pay for equal work. The staff working in the mills is claiming pay equal to or on parity with the pay scales prevailing for the staff working in the corporate offices of the mills. It is not in dispute that the office staff/sub-staff is on the Central Dearness Allowance pattern (for short CDA) while the staff/sub-staff working in the mills is on the variable Industrial Dearness Allowance pattern (for short IDA) governed by region: cum: Industry awards. It is to be noted that there has never been any parity in the pay scales between the staff working in the corporate offices of the NTC and its subsidiaries and the staff working in the mills. However, over the years the disparity between the pay scales of the staff working in the corporate offices and staff working in the mills has become highly disproportionate. It has been noticed by the Sathyam Committee, to which reference will be made in detail subsequently, that as against 159% increase in the emoluments of the staff working in the corporate offices over the staff working in the mills in the year 1987, the proportion has increased by the year 2000 to 642%. It is this disproportion between the pay scales of the staff working in the corporate offices and the staff working in the mills which has led to tremendous discontent amongst the staff working in the mills and it is this discontentment which is the root cause of this entire litigation. The problem is further aggravated by the fact that the NTC as well as most of its subsidiaries have been constantly incurring losses and majority of them are sick companies facing proceeding under the Sick Industrial Companies (Special Provision) Act, 1985 (in short SICA).

(3.) In support of their plea of "equal pay for equal work" the staff working in the mills claimed that the nature of work performed by them is the same as the staff working in the corporate offices. They have gone to the extent of saying that there is interchangeability between the staff working at the two places. The subsidiaries of the NTC are spread over in different parts of the country. The staff working in some of the subsidiaries through their associations approached the respective High Courts in the country for relief regarding revision of pay scales raising the plea of "equal pay for equal work". Ultimately these cases stood transferred to this Court and were bunched together. The matter has been pending in this Court for quite some time. The effort of the Court has been to find an amicable settlement of the problem. In fact, by an order dated 29th September, 1989, by consent of all the counsel appearing for the parties, reference was made to the National Industrial Tribunal in a bid to resolve the controversy. The Tribunal deliberated on the issues involved over a long period of time. It ultimately submitted its report on 17th July, 1996. This report did not succeed in resolving the issues. The report found that the "workmen in the mills are getting lesser emoluments than those comparable categories of employees serving in the corporate offices. The workmen have succeeded in showing that there are some similarities in the work done by two sets of employees but they have failed to show satisfactorily that employees working in the mills discharge similar functions when judged on the yardstick of reliability, quality, responsibility, confidentiality etc." The finding of the Tribunal regarding absence of equality or parity on working between the staff working in the corporate offices and the other working in the mills has an important bearing on the claim of the staff working in the mills. The long time that elapsed during the pendency of the matter in this Court and before the National Industrial Tribunal resulted in further prejudice to the claim of the staff in the mills because the management refused to entertain any request for pay revision during this period on the plea of matter being subjudice. While the claim for revision of the pay scale for the staff working in the mills remained pending, the pay scales of the staff working in the corporate offices continued to be revised from time to time which resulted in the situation as noticed earlier that is, from a disparity in pay scales of the two categories being 159% in the year 1987, it became 642% in the year 2000.