SADHU RAM Vs. DELHI TRANSPORT CORPORATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Special leave granted.

(2.) Sadhu Ram was a probationer Bus Conductor whose services were terminated on 7th September, 1967 by the respondent, the Delhi Transport Corporation. On the failure of conciliation proceedings, the Conciliation Officer, Delhi submitted his report to the Delhi Administration under S. 12 (5) of the Industrial Disputes Act, whereupon the Delhi Administration referred the following dispute to the Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Delhi for adjudication:

(3.) We are afraid the High Court misdirected itself. The jurisdiction under Art. 226 of the Constitution is truly wide but, for that very reason it has to be exercised with great circumspection. It is not for the High Court to constitute itself into an appellate Court over Tribunals constituted under special legislations to resolve disputes of a kind qualitatively different from ordinary civil disputes and to readjudicate upon questions of fact decided by those Tribunals. That the questions decided pertain to jurisdictional facts does not entitle the High Court to interfere with the findings on jurisdictional facts which the Tribunal is well competent to decide. Where the circumstances indicate that the Tribunal has snatched at jurisdiction, the High Court may be justified in interfering. But where the Tribunal gets jurisdiction only if a reference is made and it is therefore impossible ever to say that the Tribunal has clutched at jurisdiction, we do not think that it was proper for the High Court to substitute its judgment for that of the Labour Court and hold that the workman had raised no demand with the management. There was a conciliation proceeding, the conciliation had failed and the Conciliation Officer had so reported to the Government. The Government was justified in thinking that there was an industrial dispute and referring it to the Labour Court.