ORISSA STATE WAREHOUSING CORPORATION LIMITED Vs. ORISSA STATE WAREHOUSING CORPORATION EMPLOYEES UNION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The orissa State Warehousing Corporation (Staff) Regulations, 1985 (the 'regulations') govern the service conditions of the employees working under the Corporation. These regulations are made under Section 42 of the Warehousing Corporation Act, 1962 with the previous sanction of the State government. We are concerned here with Regulation No. 3 which deals with "classification and Categories of Posts with Scale of Pay". Sub-clause (1 of the said Regulations classifies the employees into different grades from Grade-1 to Grade-IV and also states their pay scales against each of the grades. Sub-clause (2 thereof states that the scale of pay of different grades of employees can be revised by the Board of Directors from time to time as and when necessary. This Regulation was amended by the orissa State Warehousing Corporation (Amendment) Regulations, 1989 by inserting the following sub-clause (3 after sub-clause (2

(2.) It appears that the Corporation had proposed the said amendment without giving a notice to the employees. The employees, however, learnt of the same and raised an industrial dispute in connection with the said proposed amendment, and the matter was pending in conciliation. However, during the pendency of the conciliation proceedings, the aforesaid amendment was brought into force.

(3.) The employees challenged the amendment before the High court by way of a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution on two grounds, namely, that the said amendment was in contravention of Section 9-A and also of Section 33 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (the 'act'). The High court by its impugned decision dealt with the challenge based on Section 9-A of the Act and came to the conclusion that inasmuch as the amendment related to Item 7 of Schedule 4 of the Act, it was hit by the provisions of Section 9-A and hence a notice of change was necessary before the amendment was effected. For coming to this conclusion, the High court held that the proposed change related to the "classification and Grades". We are afraid that the High court has misconstrued the said amendment. We have already quoted the amendment which shows that all that was sought to be done by it was to constitute the employees holding posts other than those specifically mentioned therein in thecategory of Grades-11, III and IV, into a separate cadre each and to make the employees holding the posts in the said cadre, transferable to the other posts in the same cadre. No new categories or grades were being created. The High court is, therefore, clearly wrong in its construction of the amendment. We, therefore set aside the said findings.