NETLON INDIA Vs. BIPIN V PATEL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Invoking clause 15 of the Letters Patent, this appeal is preferred from the order of the learned Single Judge whereby the petition of the respondent herein has been admitted and interim relief, in effect, of restraining the appellants from altering the conditions of service of the respondent is granted after hearing the parties. The respondent prayed for quashing the order of the Labour Court refusing interim relief while the application of the respondent under Section 33A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 ( for short "the Act") was pending. Although that petition was styled as one under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution, the main prayers were to call for the record and proceedings of the complaint of the respondent pending in the Labour Court and to quash the interim order refusing to grant interim relief in favour of the respondent-workman. Therefore, if we were inclined to accept the first submission of the appellants that the petition of the respondent was maintainable only under Article 227 and the learned Single Judge ought not to have interfered in exercise of limited jurisdiction of the Court, this appeal would not have been maintainable. However, we have heard the learned counsel at length on all issues that were raised on behalf of the appellants.

(2.) The relevant facts, in brief, emerging from the record are that the respondent-workman was appointed by the appellant as a Trainee Operator Gr.II by appointment letter dated 17.7.1997 of which the important conditions read as under:-

(3.) There is no dispute about the fact that a reference of the industrial dispute in which bonus at the rate of 20% is claimed is pending in the Labour Court, Bharuch vide Reference No.12 of 2002. It is the case of the respondent all throughout that he was being victimized for espousing the cause of the workmen and their union and that the transfer was malafide, that no work of Machine Operator was available at Delhi-warehouse and that he had no desire to work on the post to which he was promoted.It is also not disputed that the respondent is without job since the date of his transfer and he has, besides filing the complaint under Section 33A of the Act, made a complaint about the offence of "unfair labour practice" allegedly committed by the appellant. According to communication dated 5.4.2004 of the office of the Assistant Commissioner of Labour, the complaint has been, after issuing show cause notice to and hearing the appellant, forwarded for approval of prosecution.