(1.) IN Desikachari v. Associated Publishers 1961 (2) LLJ 771] a Bench of this Court consisting of Ramachandra Ayyar, officiating C.J., and Ramakrishnan. J., dealt with the cases of three journalists, P. S. Desikachari, C. Theobald and A. Krishnamurthi, who were employed by the respondent, the proprietors of the "Madras Mail," and who were retired upon attaining ages considered to be ages of superannuation. The labour court, before whom the petitioners instituted claims for benefits, held that the termination of the services of these journalists was the consequence of a voluntary retirement in each case, or of attaining the age of superannuation, and that in any event, there was no case of retrenchment, attracting the claim to benefits under the relevant statutory provisions. This Bench held that the petitioners were retrenched, and were entitled to retrenchment compensation under Ss. 2 (oo) and 25F of the INdustrial Disputes Act, XIV of 1947. IN result, the order of the labour court was quashed, and the petition was released to be disposed of afresh
(2.) THE labour court again dealt with the matter by means of a fairly lengthy and detailed judgment, and came to certain conclusions with regard to the benefits to which the present appellants, the ex-journalists, would be entitled. Writ Petitions Nos. 832 to 837 of 1962 and 272 to 275 of 1962 were instituted before Veeraswami, J., upon the same subject-matter of controversy. THE learned judge, ultimately, allowed the petitions of the management only upon one restricted aspect, namely the claim in respect of interest, but dismissed those petitions in other respects. THEre was also a direction with regard to incometax deduction and these two aspects, namely, claim in respect of interest and the deductions to be made for incometax are not in controversy. THE other points, which have survived to be pressed before us in these writ appeals by learned counsel on behalf of the management (THE "Madras Mail)," may be tersely set forth as follows.THE first ground argued is that the labour court and the learned Judge (Veeraswami, J.) were in error, with regard to the claim of these working journalists for notice, and pay in lieu of notice, as provided for by statute, with reference to a particular dateline. THE argument is that there was correspondence between the "Mail" and these journalists even earlier, in which correspondence the journalist had been clearly intimated of the intention of the management to retire or superannuate them, or to dispense with their services by way of retrenchment, which may be the more accurate manner of phrasing it in the light of the Bench decision, with effect from a particular date. THE notice required by law had already been given, and with regard to two of the journalists, Krishnamurthi and Desikachari, the argument was that they were not again entitled to notice from the dateline, namely, 30 September 1956. That is a short point of a very restricted scope. THE other two grounds are of some importance. THE first is that the wages to be determined with regard to these employees, ought to be inclusive of the travelling allowance of Rs. 30 per mensem granted to them by the management, in the light of the genesis of this allowance or concession, and its convertibility, according to the management, into actual expenses incurred by these journalists for travel in the course of their duties, which the management had necessarily to reimburse. That is a point upon which considerable argument was addressed before us, and it needs to be dealt with in some detail. THE third ground is that, at least as regards gratuity which these employees could claim under the provisions of S. 5 of Act XLV of 1955, in the light of the earlier acquittance given by these persons, and the area of controversy that, survived before the labour court after the disposal of Desikachari v. Associated Publishers 1961 (2) LLJ 771] the labour court had really no jurisdiction to proceed into the matter at all, or to award any benefit upon any such basis. THE respondents were stopped from claiming the benefit and the tribunal was inhibited by a fundamental lack of jurisdiction, from going into the question. THE learned Judge (Veeraswami, J.) was in error in upholding the finding of the tribunal) with regard to the claim to gratuity benefit.As we stated, earlier, these are the three grounds that have survived to be pressed in the hearing of these appeals, and we shall deal with the first ground quite briefly, before proceeding to the other two grounds.
(3.) WE may immediately proceed to the next ground, which is the real ground of difficulty in these appeals. The background of fact is not particularly in dispute. Apparently, these working journalists had to travel all over Madras City, because of their assignments as reporters or working journalists, and, ordinarily, the management was either providing a motor conveyance for them, or honouring the bills lodged by the employees with regard to the taxi or conveyance charges. At one stage, the management felt that this was both costly, and a procedure admitting only of imperfect control. For that reason, figures were taken in a year, and an average was worked out, which came to Rs. 30 per mensem. That was thereafter paid, as "travelling allowance" to each working journalist, and it formed part of the emoluments which the journalists derived, subject of course, to the condition that he should perform his duties faithfully, and himself look to his expenses of travel in Madras City in the course of his duties. It is not disputed that this is the genesis of the concession, or allowance, whichever it might be termed. The short question, is, does it form an essential ingredient of wages as defined in S. 2 (rr) of Act XIV of 1947 " Section 2 (rr) of Act XIV of 1947 declares that wages means