MERLA JAGANNAYAKULU Vs. PRESIDING OFFICER LABOUR COURT MADRAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE fourth respondents on the ground that he had been retrenched from the service of the fifth respondent of which the petitioner was a partner applied to the labour Court, Madras under S. 33-C (2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, for computation of the benefits of retrenchment compensation, notice pay and arrears of wages. The fifth respondent was a firm of partnership constituted on or about 25-9-1958. On 12-9-1959, the petitioner went out of the firm and ceased to be a partner, as he claims. The first firm was engaged in production of a picture by name "samajam" in Telugu. The fourth respondent claimed that he was employed in the from April 1958 to December 1959, and, on 31-12-1959, the management terminated his service without any reason and without any notice. He claimed Rs. 200 as retrenchment compensation, another sum of Rs. 200 in lieu of notice, the sum being his salary for a month and Rs. 4200 as arrears of salary from April 1958 to December 1959. The labour Court allowed the entire claim. the petitioner states that he, having gone out of the partnership as early as September 1959, knew nothing about the proceedings under S. 33-C (2) and he had no notice of them. The first notice that he had was in or about August 1962, when the order of the Labour Court was sought to be executed against him under the provisions of the Revenue Recovery Act by the Collector of East Godavari, on a request for the purpose from the Collector of Madras. He has, therefore, applied to this court to quash the order of the Labour Court.

(2.) IT is argued for the petitioner that, nowhere in its order, the labour court has directed its mind to find whether this was a case of retrenchment at all. I has not found that the services of the fourth respondent were dispensed with on the ground of surplus labour. It is only in such a case, according to the petitioner, the termination could be called as retrenchment.

(3.) I think this contention is well founded, in Murugesa Naicker Co. v. Presiding officer, Labour Court, 1963-1 Mad LJ 158 this court held that termination of services in order to be retrenched should be of surplus labour and in an industry which was continuing and not closed or transferred. Rathinaswami Nadar v. Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Madurai, also took the same view. In this case, as in the first of those cases, the labour court assumed that it automatically followed from its finding that the services of the workman had been terminated that he was retrenched from service. That is a misdirection, and the labour court's order in so far as it related to notice pay and retrenchment compensation, should be quashed.