STATE BANK OF BIKANER Vs. KHANDELWAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The respondent, R.L. Khandelwal, was employed as a clerk by the Bank of Jaipur Ltd. sometime in the month of April, 1949, On 5th January, 1952, an industrial dispute between the banking companies of India and their workmen was referred to the All-India Industrial Tribunal (Bank Disputes), Bombay, with Sri S. Panchapagesa Sastry as the Chairman, and two other members. The award of the Tribunal was published in the Gazette of India dated 20th April, 1953. That award is popularly known as the Sastry Award and shall be referred to as such in this judgment. The Sastry Award, inter alia, laid down the scales of pay for various classes of employees in the banks. We are only concerned with employees of two classes, viz., ordinary routine clerks and clerks carrying on supervisory duties or holding certain posts which required special qualifications or skill for the efficient discharge of their duties. A number of posts were put under the latter classification and they included supervisors, superintendents, sub-accountants, etc. On 14th March, 1955, the directors of the bank, by a resolution, authorised certain officers working in the branches of the bank to pass cheques or debit vouchers to the extent of the limit mentioned against the name of each one of those officers in the written order issued on that date. One of the persons thus authorised was the respondent. Admittedly, the respondent continued to do this work up to 2nd February, 1956. According to the respondent, on 3rd February, 1956, he was wrongfully reverted to do routine clerical work on his demanding benefit of the supervisory allowance prescribed under the Sastry Award. He has already been given the supervisory allowance under that Award up to 31st January, 1956. Prior to this reversion, the bank sent a letter dated 24th January, 1956, offering promotion to the respondent to the cadre of an officer in the grade mentioned in that letter with the benefits available to an officer, subject to the condition that the respondent agreed that, on his promotion, he will cease to be a workman and will not be entitled to the benefits available to a workman under the Sastry Award. The respondent, by his letter dated 31st January, 1956, refused to give up his rights as a workman, but claimed that because of his qualifications, period of service and the kind of work that he was doing in the bank for the last 11 months he was entitled to promotion to a higher grade, while continuing to be a workman. It was thereafter that the bank, according to the respondent, reverted him to the duties of an ordinary routine clerk. On 1st January, 1960, the State Bank of Jaipur was constituted and the Bank of Jaipur Ltd. was absorbed in this State Bank of Jaipur, so that the respondent became its employee. On 1st January, 1963, the State Bank of Jaipur was amalgamated with the State Bank of Bikaner and the combined bank came to be known as the State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur. It is this bank which is the appellant before us.

(2.) The respondent, on 2nd April, 1964, presented an application under Section 33C(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (14 of 1947) (hereinafter referred to as "the Act"), claiming that he was entitled to the special allowance prescribed by the Sastry Award on the ground that he had been wrongly reverted on 3rd February, 1956, to do clerical work and by that order, he could not be deprived of his right to receive the supervisory allowance. This application came up before the Central Government Labour Court, Rajasthan, at Jaipur which allowed it and directed payment of the supervisory allowance to the respondent by the appellant. The appellant has now come up by special leave to this court.

(3.) The claim of the respondent to the supervisory allowance was contested on behalf of the appellant on three different grounds. Two of the grounds related to the jurisdiction of the Labour Court to entertain the application under Section 33C(2) of the Act and to the plea that the respondent had disentitled himself to the claim because of laches and delay inasmuch as the application was filed in 1964 when the claim related to a period which began on 3rd February, 1956. These two grounds were, however, not argued before us, because, on behalf of the appellant, reliance was placed primarily on the third ground on which we consider that the appeal must be allowed. This ground urged was that, during the period for which the respondent was claiming the supervisory allowance, he was not, in fact, either holding a post or working in a post involving work of supervisory nature and, consequently, under the Sastry Award he was not entitled to claim the special allowance.