MINAKSHI MILLS LTD Vs. LABOUR APPELLATE TRIBUNAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by the Minakshi Mills, Ltd. , Madurai, under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent against the, judgment of Subba Rao, J. , dismissing an application made by the appellant for the issue of a writ of certiorarai to call for the records and proceedings relating to appeal No. 119 of 1951 before the Labour Appellate Tribunal, Bombay, and to quash its decision in the said appeal, dated 6 September 1951.

(2.) THE facts and events which led up to that application are as follows; On 7 December 1949 the Government of Madras by its order Ms. No. 5793, referred the industrial dispute which had arisen between the workers and the managements of the Minakshi Mills, Ltd. , Madurai, in respect of matters mentioned in the annexure to that order for adjudication to the industrial tribunal having its place of sitting at Madurai. The matters mentioned in the annexure included the payment of full wages for the third Shift from 1 April 1949, introduction of the system of three eight-hour shifts with half an hour rest interval with no out in wages, revision of basic wage, dearness allowance and time-scale and others, in August 1947, the Government had appointed a standardisation committee and a wage board to determine the standard of workload and the wage structure for different categories of workers in the textile mills in the Province. On 31 December 1947 the standardisation committee made its report and on 18 April 1949 the wage board made its report. On 29 January 1950 the Inspector of Factories, Madurai, addressed a letter to the manager of the Minakshi Mills, Ltd. , inviting their attention to the report of the wage board and requested them that the recommendations of the board may be given effect to in their mills and the fact reported to the office of the Inspector of Factories at an early date. On 2 February 1950 the mills were again reminded of this. On 9 February 1950 the factory manager of the mills wrote to the Labour Officer pointing-out I that an implementation of the report of the wage board could not be done in isolation and that the report of the Standardisation Committee had to be implemented before implementing that of the wage board. On 23 February 1950 the manager of the mills notified that from and after 10 March 1950 the workloads as prescribed and defined by the Standardisation Committee's report and the report of the wage board based upon it would be brought into force and consequent retrenchment of labour would also be made. A list of workers who had to be retrenched was notified separately. The number of such workers was 539. On 24 February 1950 the factory manager of the mills wrote to the Inspector of Factories that they had issued a notice to the workers of their intention to implement the report of the wage board. Immediately the Commissioner of Labour wrote to the managing director of the mills on 25 February 1950 inviting their attention to Section 33 of the Industrial Disputes Act. He pointed out: If as a result of this change workloads are increased it will amount to a change in conditions of service. He therefore suggested that the mills should not make any change in the conditions of service without the express permission of the tribunal with whom the reference regarding wages etc. , payable to the workers was pending adjudication. The mills replied to him that no permission of the tribunal was necessary for implementing the recommendations approved by the Government and asked by it to be implemented. On 10 March 1950 when the first shift of workers came in, the retrenched workers were excluded. The workers who were admitted were allotted work on the new basis of the interim workloads recommended by the standardisation committee. Apparently in the ringframe department, the factory manager of the mills issued therefore the following notice: Whereas the workers of the entire ring-frame department acting on concert and without due notice have struck work from 8-45 a. m. today by staying inside the department and not attending to the prescribed number of spindles in accorance with the recommendations of the Government which have been implemented at their instance and such strike being illegal it has become necessary for the management to declare a lockout of the entire ringframe department. What evidently happened was, the workers refused to attend to the extra work which they had to do according to the new work-load. This notice was succeeded by another notice to the following effect: As the ringframe department has been locked out owing to illegal strike from 8-45 a m. today the management has been obliged to close down the other departments on loss of pay as they cannot be worked till the resumption of work in the ringframa department. On 21 March 1950 Government referred to the industrial tribunal, Madurai, for adjudication the dispute between the workers and the management of the mills in respect of the following issue, namely :

(3.) BEFORE Subba Rao, J. , the management again urged that the appeal to the Appellate Tribunal was not maintainable. But the learned Judge overruled that objection and said that he would not go into the question whether the Appellate Tribunal had erred on a question of law or on a mixed question of fact and law. There was no error on law on the face of the record ; hence he dismissed the application. The appeal before us is against this order of dismissal passed by Subba Rao. J.