MANAGEMENT OF RANI MANGAMMAL TRANSPORT Vs. PRESIDING OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner has filed the above writ petition praying to issue a Writ of Certiorari to call for the records pertaining to the Award dated 29. 11. 1996 passed in I. D. No. 90/1992 and to quash the same.

(2.) TODAY when the matter is taken up for consideration in the presence of the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned counsel for the second respondent what comes to be known is that the petitioner corporation is a public transport corporation catering to the needs of the passenger traffic in and around the area of Dindigul; that the petitioner Corporation was formed on 1. 4. 1996 by bifurcating the erstwhile Pandian Roadways Corporation, that the petitioner Corporation has entered into settlement with the majority union with regard to wages, dearness allowance and other allowances etc. , that the second respondent is not a major union at all and it has no representative capacity to espouse the cause of the workmen; that the second respondent, however, raised an industrial dispute claiming Hill Allowance in respect of the employees of Kumuli Branch; that the Government referred the following issue for adjudication: whether the demand for payment of Hill allowance to the workers working in Kumuli Branch of Rani Mangammal Transport Corporation Ltd. , is justified?

(3.) THE further case of the petitioner is that the second respondent union filed claim statement stating that they have passed a resolution to claim 5% of basic salary as hill allowance for the workers employed in the petitioner Corporation's Branch Office at Kumili; that since the management did not agree for the same, they have raised the industrial dispute; that in the claim statement, they also referred to G. O. Ms. No. 756 Labour and Employment Department dated 26. 10. 1977 wherein places viz. , Kodaikanal, Periyar, Kuruvanuthu, Narayanathevanpatti and Sirumalai Village had been notified as hill stations and therefore they contended that the place Kumuli which is 3000 feet above Kuruvanuthu should also be construed as a hill station and they are entitled to the said hill allowance from 1. 9. 1986.