LAKSHMINARAYANA RAO K Vs. STATE OF MADRAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application to issue a writ of certiorari quashing an award of the industrial tribunal, Coimbatore, in industrial dispute No. 4a of 1952 dated 25 June 1952, and published in the Port St. George Gazette, dated 2 July 1952.

(2.) THE facts giving rise to the petition are as follows: The petitioner is the proprietor of a concern known as the Mysore Modern Cafe, Coimbatore. There was a dispute between the petitioner and his workers regarding the bonus payable to the latter for the year 194950, which was referred to the industrial tribunal, Coimbatore, for adjudication. This dispute was numbered as I. D. No. 27 of 1950 and an award was passed in it, which was taken up in appeal to the Labour Appellate Tribunal at the instance of the petitioner. Meanwhile the workers raised a fresh dispute regarding the quantum of bonus for the next year 1950-51, and this was also referred to the industrial tribunal, Coimbatore, for adjudication. The matter was taken up for enquiry by the tribunal on 1 April 1952 and on that date the parties filed two separate memoranda, but in identical terms agreeing that the bonus payable for 1949-50 as per the decision of the Labour Appellate Tribunal would be treated as the proper amount of bonus payable for the year 1950-51 also. The tribunal accepted this joint statement and passed an award on 5 April 1952 in the same terms, which was published in the Fort St. George Gazette on 18 April 1952.

(3.) ON the same date on which these statements were filed, that is, on 1 April 1952, the petitioner filed an application to the tribunal setting' out the fact that he was a permanent resident of Mysore, and that owing to domestic difficulties he could not stay in Coimbatore and carry on his hotel, which required his personal attention in its day-today affairs. He, therefore, prayed that the tribunal might be pleased to permit him to close his concern from 16 April 1952. This was obviously an application seeking the permission of the tribunal under Section 33 of the Industrial Disputes Act to discharge his workmen, during the pendency of a dispute, a request which might have been granted, if the tribunal considered that the closure intended was bona fide. Unfortunately the petitioner entitled his application as one under Section 33a of the Industrial Disputes Act. The industrial tribunal immediately passed an order summarily rejecting the petition on the ground that under Section 33a of the Act such a petition was not maintainable. This is most unfortunate because, under Section 36 (4) of the Industrial Disputes Act, legal practitioners cannot appear except with the consent of the other side, and in my experience, the consent is seldom accorded. If laymen have to conduct proceedings in which highly technical problems and points are involved, the tribunals in conduct of such proceedings are expected to take a lenient view of such lapses, which are really errors of a clerical nature. Even in civil courts, where professional lawyers of experience handle cases it is not uncommon to find errors of this type creeping in, but the courts, however, do not dismiss applications which are maintainable under the law, merely because a wrong section is quoted as that under which the relief is sought. Either liberty is afforded to correct such errors, or the petitions or applications are dealt with as if they carried in their cause title the correct provision of law corresponding to the reliefs prayed for. It is regrettable that the industrial tribunal should have dismissed the petitions on such a ground but one thing, however, is clear that though the petitioner applied to the tribunal for permission to discharge his workmen, this has never been refused on the merits.