WORKMEN EMPLOYED Vs. HINDUSTAN LEVER LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) It is most unfortunate that all those unhealthy and injudicious practices resorted to for unduly delaying the conclusion of civil proceedings have stealthily crept in, for reasons not unknown, in the adjudication of industrial disputes for the resolution of which An informal forum and simple procedure were devised with the avowed object of keeping them free from the dilatory practices of Civil Courts. Times without number this Court, (to quote only two, D.P. Maheshwari v. Delhi Administration, (1983) 4 SCC 293 and S. K. Verma v. Mahesh Chandra, (1983) 4 SCC 214), disapproved the practice of raising frivolous preliminary objections at the instance of the employer to delay and defeat by exhausting the workmen, the outcome of the dispute yet we have to deal with the same situation in this appeal by special leave.

(2.) The Government of Maharashtra by its order dated Oct. 22, 1975 referred a dispute between Hindustan Lever Ltd. ('employer' for short) and the workmen employed by them for adjudication under Section 10 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 to the Industrial Tribunal, Maharashtra. The schedule, annexed to the order of reference specified the dispute as under:

(3.) The industrial Tribunal held that whatever camouflage of the language in which the demand is couched, the attempt is to obtain promotion which cannot be claimed as a matter of right, it being a managerial function. The Tribunal in terms held that promotion is the function of the Management and the Industrial Tribunal will have no power and jurisdiction to take away the function of the Management and direct that such and such workmen should be promoted to a particular post. In this view of the matter, the Tribunal held that the dispute was not all industrial dispute within the meaning of the expression and rejected the reference as incompetent. Hence this appeal by special ]cave.