PARAGON TALKIES [OWNED Vs. MANICKAM R

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ON an application by respondent 1, who resigned from service with effect from 6 January 1961, the labour court, Madras, computed the gratuity due to him under an earlier settlement. The labour court ordered a sum of Rs. 2,534 52 under Section 330 (2) of the industrial Disputes Act to be paid to him on account of gratuity. This petition is to quash that order.

(2.) THE first of the contentions urged for the petitioner is that gratuity being an interim item included in Schedule III to the Act, It is the industrial tribunal which has Jurisdiction and not the labour Court. The argument admittedly the fact that what is done by the labour court is not an adjudication upon the liability of gratuity, but only computation of the gratuity which respondent, I was entitled to under an anterior settlement. The provision under Section 33c is also in a sense not original but is ezeoutory in nature, giving effect to settlement and awards by computation of the benefits flowing thereunder or determining the quantum of benefit accruing under Chap. V-A of the Act. There is, therefore, no substance in this point.

(3.) IT is next contended that since on the date of the application under Section 330 respondent I was no longer a workman, and since also he had resigned from service, he would not be a workman within the meaning of the term under the Industrial Disputes Act, and that, therefore, the application under Section 33c was not maintainable. It is true that a person who has resigned from service is not one of the categories of persons within the ambit of the inclusive part of the definition of a " workman. " But it is a well-known principle that the status of the party for purposes of relief on the execution side should be determined as on the date when the right accrued and not on the date on which the right is said to be enforced. When that settlement was entered into which was the source of liability for gratuity in favour of respondent 1, he was undoubtedly a workman within the meaning of the Act. That being the case, he was competent to file the application under Section 33c.