MANAGER PERSONNEL AND ADMINISTRATION Vs. NESLIN JOSEPH PRIM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant is the employer. It is aggrieved by the fact that the dispute between it and one of it's former employees was referred for adjudication to the Central Government Industrial Tribunal functioning at Chennai.

(2.) According to the appellant, the said Tribunal at Chennai has no jurisdiction to try the matter, as the appellant does not have its industry at Chennai and the former employee had not been employed by it at any place within the State of Tamil Nadu. He had been employed outside the State and the place at which he was working at the time his employment was terminated was at Bharuch in Gujarat. The employer has its head office at Delhi. It does not have a branch at Chennai or elsewhere in the State of Tamil Nadu.

(3.) Learned counsel for the appellant took us through the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act and also referred us to several judgments of the Supreme Court and various High Courts in support of his submission that the object of the Industrial Disputes Act is to promote industrial peace and in order to achieve that object any dispute concerning an industry and it's workmen should be tried and decided by a Labour Court or a Tribunal, which functions at or near the place where that industry is located or the place at which the workman had worked. The decisions, on which the counsel relied, were decisions which were rendered in the context of rival claims regarding which Government was the appropriate Government to make a reference and in that context the Courts had to consider as to whether the dispute that was required to be resolved had greater nexus with one or the other State, as the State with which the dispute had the greater nexus would become the appropriate Government and the jurisdiction of the Labour Court or the Tribunal would be dependant upon the Government of the State in which that Court or Tribunal is situated being the appropriate government.