E I D PARRY INDIA LIMITED STATE OF TAMIL NADU E I D PARRY INDIA LIMITED WORKMEN REP Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Nellikuppam Sugar Factory, one of the factories run by E. I. D. Parry (India) Ltd., was founded in 1845 and has been manufacturing sugar, candy and other sugar based products. The crushing capacity of the sugar factory was 2200 tons of cane per day up to 1969. In February that year the Company decided to increase the said capacity to 2800 tons and that capacity was again further increased to 4000 tons a day in 1977. Disputes arose as to the labour strength in the sugar unit and two associate manufactories being a distillery and a C02 unit - as also the cane offices (hereinafter referred to as 'Factory'), and by an Award dated December 23, 1977, such strength was determined at 1,700 regular workmen and 100 casual labourers. In January 1978, there was a. bipartite settlement accepting the figures given in the Award and that settlement remained operative till almost the end of 1981. In December that year, the Union raised a charter of demands mainly focussed upon wages. As there were certain vacancies within the approved strength the Union also asked for filling up the same. The management thereupon wanted a review of the strength fixed in the settlement of 1978 and negotiations were carried on for quite some time with a view to resolving the dispute .the management asking for a scaling down of the strength on the ground that it was not economically viable to continue with that strength of the labour force, as fixed earlier, and the workmen insisting upon the implementation of the agreed strength. When the bipartite negotiations did not yield any useful result, the Company ultimately issued a notice on June 7, 1983, for a close down of the factory with effect from August 8, 1983, on the ground of continued loss arising out of and connected with the excess labour strength and high rate of wages as compared to the rates payable in sugar industry under the scales fixed by the Sugar Wage Board. On July 4, 1983, the State Government of Tamil Nadu. directed reference of the two disputes under S. 10(1)(d) read with S. 12(5) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 ('Act' for short), to the 'Tribunal for adjudication.. On August 1, 1983, the State Government again made another reference relating to the justification of closure. On that very day an order was made by, the State Government under S. 10B of the Act as amended in the State of Tamil Nadu prohibiting the closure of and strike in the factory pending adjudication of the dispute referred to the Tribunal.

(2.) The three questions which thus came to be referred to the Tribunal were the following :-

(3.) The writ petitions were filed by the Company impugning the validity of S. 10B of the Act as amended in the State of Tamil Nadu as also the Government order prohibiting the closing down of the factory. This Court by order dated August 10, 1983, directed after hearing the parties that there would be a stay of the operation of the Government Order, prohibiting closure subject to certain directions. Those directions authorised the factory to continue to operate with a reduced staff / labour force of 952 workmen and so far as the excess strength of 950 was concerned, the closure was permitted to take effect from midnight of 8/9th August, 1983 on the basis of "last come, first go". This Court also directed that the wages of the workmen who would continue in employment would not stand reduced to the level of the Sugar Board's Awards as amended from time to time and accepted by other sugar factories in the State. The Court directed the Tribunal to detenmine within a period not exceeding three months the strength of the workmen required to operate the factory taking into consideration all relevant factors including strength of workmen in neighbouring sugar factories with similar capacity operating in the State of Tamil Nadu