LACHMAN SINGH Vs. STATESMAN LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition under section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure by two employees of the Statesman Limited raises some interesting questions as to the scope of the functions and the extent of the powers of the Court when called upon to consider if the plaintiff has a prima facie case, as to the powers of this Court on its revisional side where the courts below refuse to grant interim injunction on the ground that the plaintiff did not have a prima facie case and as to whether there is anything in the provisions of the Industrial Employment Standing Orders, Act, 1946, and the Standing Orders certified under that which may bar the claim of an industrial employee to enforce an agreement purporting to confer additional benefits on him merely because the same are not incorporated .by a modification of the standing orders.

(2.) Petitioner No. 2 is a working journalist while petitioner No. 1 ,and respondents No. 2 and 3 are non-working journalist employees of the Statesman Ltd. Ail the four employees are being proceeded against on certain charges and the domestic enquiries were pending when they made a claim that in terms of an agreement between the management and the employees incorporated in the minutes of certain meetings between the representatives of the employees and the Resident Director of Statesman Ltd. said to have been held on May 16, 20 and 22, 1958, they were entitled to the presence of a representative of the Union at the time of the departmental enquiry, even though, and this fact is not in dispute, the standing orders certified under the Act, both in respect of the working journalists and the non-working journalists, confer a right on the employees of being represented by a co-worker. On the claim being repudiated the employees filed a suit, out of which the present petition has arisen, seeking to enforce the aforesaid agreement and sought from the trial court an interim direction requiring the management to allow the union representative to sit during the enquiry proceedings until the decision of the suit. The interim direction sought by them was refused and the order has since been upheld by the first appellate court. According to the trial court, the plaintiffs did not have a prima facie case for the reasons that the existence of the agreement of 1958 was disputed; that in any event, the minutes did not constitute an agreement; that assuming that it amounted to an agreement, it could not override the provisions of the standing orders, which were statutory in character; and that the agreement, if any, incorporated in the minutes, stood superseded by the standing orders which were of a later date. The trial court further held that no irreparable injury could possibly be caused to the interest of the plaintiffs if the alleged right to the presence of a union representative was denied to them. While upholding the order the first appellate court held that the minutes of the meeting referred to above could not be termed "to be a contract" ; that there was nothing on the record to show that the right claimed by the plaintiff had ever been recognised by the management in the standing orders; and that the standing orders had the effect of superseding any such agreement.

(3.) On behalf of the petitioners it is urged that in considering the question whether the plaintiffs had a prima facie case or not the courts below have clearly transgressed the limits of the functions- of a court while dealing with a claim for an, interim injunction in that the courts below have, instead of finding if the plaintiffs had raised questions in the suit which required consideration, gone into and had virtually decided the questions. It was further urged that the questions posed by the plaintiffs whether the minutes of the meeting between the management and the representatives of the employees constituted a binding agreement or not and, if so, whether the plaintiffs were entitled to the presence of a unn representative at the time of the domestic enquiry and as to the effect of the certified standing orders on the aforesaid agreement, were substantial questions. of fact and law and constituted a prima facie case for the plaintiff, which, on a proper application of the law, should have been held as entitling the plaintiffs to interim direction sought by them. It is further urged that the conclusion of the trial court that by refusal to permit the union representative to be present at the domestic enquiry no irreparable injury would be caused was wholly erroneous.