INDIAN BANK Vs. PRESIDING OFFICER INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNAL CENTRAL GOVERNMENT HIGH COURT PREMISES MADRAS 1

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal arises out of the order passed in W.P.6889 of 1975 filed by the Management of the Indian Bank (hereinafter referred to as the Bank), by which the learned Judge (Koshal, J.), dismissed the writ petition, rejecting the preliminary objection raised on behalf of the Bank that the reference made by the Government of India, in the Ministry of Labour, was not competent, as the dispute was not an industrial dispute within the meaning of the definition in section 2(k) of the Industrial Disputes Act, inasmuch as the persons whose cause the Employees Union (hereinafter referred to as the Union) espoused, were not workmen within the meaning of the Act, but belonged to a category of supervisory staff.

(2.) The facts leading to the reference may shortly be stated. It is an admitted position in this case that there was an agreement between the Bank and the Union, that the Bank should fill a fixed percentage of posts of officers from amongst the clerical cadre staff of the Bank. It is also not disputed that, when officers are transferred from Branches in Southern India and posted to branches in Northern India, they are given two additional increments. The grievance of the Union is that, when clerks were posted to branches in Northern India on promotion, they were denied the benefit of the two additional increments, though on promotion they belonged to the same category as other officers to whom the increments were paid on being posted to branches in Northern India. The Union raised an industrial dispute, and, after the failure of the usual conciliation proceedings, the Central Government referred the dispute between the Management and the employees, which reads as follows:.

(3.) The preliminary objection, in reply to the show-cause, raised on behalf of the Bank was that the dispute raised regarding the denial of two additional increments to members of the staff promoted as officers and posted to branches of the Bank in Northern India was really a dispute regarding non-workmen, that the dispute was not in regard to workmen within the meaning of the term in section 2(e) of the Act, and that therefore, the reference made by the Government of India under section 10 of the Act, was not competent, and that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to decide the dispute.