S GUNASEKARAN Vs. GOVERNMENT OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two writ petitions came to be posted before this Court on being specially ordered by the Hon'ble Chief Justice vide his order dated 13.4.2010.

(2.) In the first writ petition, the first Petitioner is the workmen, who was an employee of Tamil Nadu Civil Service Corporation and covered by the Award in I.D. No. 359 of 1979 passed by the Labour Court, which was upheld by this Court in the writ petition as well as in a writ appeal. He sought for the execution of the Award by filing an application under Section 11B of the Industrial Disputes Act on 08.12.2009. Since the Labour Court do not have any infrastructure pursuant to the State amendment to the Industrial Disputes Act, the second Petitioner Association took up the cause and filed the first writ petition seeking for a direction to first and second Respondents to create sufficient infrastructure for the effective implementation of the Award or order passed by the Labour Court and Industrial Tribunal as per Section 11B of the I.D. Act introduced by Tamil Nadu Act 45/2008 with effect from 7.11.2008 within a time frame. In that writ petition, notice of motion was ordered on 03.12.2010.

(3.) In the meanwhile, the second writ petition came to be filed. The Petitioner in that writ petition is a workman covered by I.D. No. 484 of 1999, dated 8.7.2002, wherein and by which he was given the relief of reinstatement with service continuity but without backwages. Since the said award was not implemented, he filed a petition under Section 33C(2) of the ID Act being C.P. No. 509 of 2003 before the Labour Court, Coimbatore. In that computation petition, the Labour Court had computed a sum of Rs. 83,329/- as due and payable to the Petitioner. It was at that stage, the Tamil Nadu Act 45 of 2008 was enacted, wherein the Labour Courts were specifically empowered with power to execute its own award as a decree of the civil court by introducing Section 11B of the ID Act. The said amendment was brought into force with effect from 07.11.2008. Therefore, the Petitioner filed an execution petition before the Labour Court in an unnumbered E.P. in the year 2009. The Presiding Officer of the Labour Court had returned the papers by stating that there were no Government orders issued granting the power to the Labour Court. Even though the Petitioner several times represented his petition, the Labour Court repeatedly returned the application by stating that since no Government order was issued, the application cannot be taken on file. It was a rather unfortunate situation made by the Labour Court which forced the Petitioner to come to this Court seeking for a direction to the Labour Court to entertain his execution petition filed under Section 11B of the Act and to deal with the same. When that writ petition came up on 15.4.2010, it was directed to be posted along with the first writ petition.