KAUL Vs. NATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY COUNCIL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a writ petition filed under Article 276 of the Constitution of India for this issue of a writ of certiorari quashing the award of the labour court, Delhi, in Industrial Dispute No. F. 53 of 1966.

(2.) FOR a proper appreciation of the contentions pot forward on behalf of the petitioner and the respondents, it is necessary to state the material facts which have given rise to this writ petition. The petitioner, S. N. Kaul, was taken in the service of respondent 1, the management of the National Productivity Council, 38, Golf Links, New Delhi, on 5 December 1960, as press operator. According to the petitioner, his services were arbitrarily and illegally terminated by respondent 1 on 9 March 1964. It is stated in the writ petition that the petitioner approached the Chairman of respondent 1, on several occasion, and that be was firaly informed on 28 November 1965, that his case could not be considered any more by the Council. He, thereafter, sent a notice to respondent 1. He then Initiated conciliation proceedings which resulted in a notification, No. F. 26 (152)/66-Lab. , dated 8 Jane 1966, whereby the Delhi Administration referred the individual depute of the petitioner to the labour court for adjudication. The terms of reference were as under: Whether the termination of services of S. N. Kaul is unlawful and unjustified and, if BO. to what relief la the workman entitled ?

(3.) IN the proceedings before the labour court, respondent 1 raised a preliminary objection that the dispute was not an industrial dispute inasmuch as the case of the workman was not espoused by the other workmen of respondent 1 Council, that the provisions of S 2a of the Industrial Disputes Act did not apply to the dispute in question inasmuch as the cause of action arose when the petitioner's services were terminated, and the provision of the Industrial Disputes (Amendment) Act, 1965 (35 of 1965), which came into force on 1 December 1965, and by which Section 2a was inserted in the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, had no retrospective operation, and that consequently the labour court had no jurisdiction to entertain the dispute. The labour court heard the preliminary objection as a preliminary issue which was framed as follows: Whether the dispute is an industrial disputes or not ? The labour court passed an award on 26 October 1966, on the above preliminary objection, holding as follows: In view of this, the dispute had to be taken up as the dispute of the class and not as the dispute of a single workman. It has been argued that the raising of a dispute is a matter of mere procedural formalities. But it is not that. It is the right of the workmen combined together by which they make the dispute their own and as such a single workman has no right to raise the dispute. It was a vested right and not a matter of procedure alone. In view of this the amendment by Act 35 of 1965 cannot be held to be retrospective. It is only prospective and persons dismissed or discharged after the coming into force of the Act can only be benefited by the same. If the intention of legislature was to benefit those workers who have been dismissed earlier, the language of the section would have been different. In the light of Section 2a above, as there was no espousal, the dispute does not acquire the status of an industrial dispute, and the Court has no Jurisdiction to determine the case. As such I hold that the Court has no jurisdiction, and award accordingly. It is to quash the said award that the present writ petition has been filed.