N RARICHAN Vs. INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) We think the learned Judge was right; and no interference is called for in this appeal. The appellant is a labourer who was dismissed on 27th January 1967, the order of dismissal having been served on 28th January 1967 One month's salary or wages of the workman was also paid on 28th January 1967. Before these, even on 12th January 1967, the management had made an application to the Industrial Tribunal, Calicut, for approval of the action under S.33(2)(b) of the Industrial Disputes Act, as the dismissal for misconduct was connected with a pending industrial dispute. The Tribunal by Ext P3 order, granted the approval; and the appellant labourer filed a writ petition in this Court to quash the said order. The same was dismissed by the learned Judge, whose judgment reported in 1972 KLT 219 - is under appeal.

(2.) Counsel for the appellant stressed the point that on the language of S.33(2)(b) proviso, read with Form K, prescribed for the making of an application it was mandatory that the payment of one month's wages should have preceded the application; and as the same had not been done in this case, the application and the approval accorded by the Tribunal on the strength of the same were ineffective and of no avail. The proviso to S.33(2)(b) reads as follows:

(3.) There is another aspect of the matter. In The Straw Board Manufacturing Company's case AIR 1962 SC 1500 it has been recognised that it is enough if the dismissal or discharge, the payment of one month's wages or salary, and the making of the application, are all related to each other as parts of the same transaction. This requirement again, we should think, would stand satisfied, if the payment, and the application are related to each other in time and space as parts of the same transaction, without the payment necessarily preceding the application. In this case, they have been so related, the application being on 17th January 1967 and the dismissal and the payment of wages, being both, on 28th January 1967.