UNION OF INDIA Vs. INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNAL AND ANR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By the impugned award of the Industrial Tribunal, the reinstatement of the 2nd respondent with backwages has been ordered. The employer of the 2nd respondent herein was described by the petitioner herein as canteen managing committee with the post master as the chairman of that managing committee. That committee is not registered under the Societies Act, Co-operative Societies Act or under any other law. The canteen was run for the benefit of the employees of the 2nd petitioner's office. It was a non-statutory departmental canteen. The Industrial Tribunal has found on facts, that the 2nd respondent herein the workman had been employed as a cook, and that on account of quarrel with the another co-employee, the employer had struck off his name from the rolls, after which he went on a fast and was arrested by the police. Before the police, the Post Master had submitted that the services of the workman/ 2nd respondent had been terminated. The termination was without any kind of notice and without holding any departmental enquiry.

(2.) After the tribunal made its award on 10.3.1988, and during the pendency of this writ petition, the Supreme Court in the case of Sub Divisional Inspector of Posts, Vaikam v. Teyyam Joseph, etc., 1996 2 MadLJ 1 , held that extra departmental agents employed in Department of Posts and Telecommunications, whose appointments are governed by the statutory instructions issued by the Director General of Posts and Telecommunication are excluded from the purview of Industrial Disputes Act. The court observed that directive principles of State policy enjoin on the State diverse duties under Part IV of the Constitution and the performance of those duties are constitutional functions. One of the duties of the State is to provide telecommunication service to the general public and an amenity, and so it is an essential part of the sovereign functions of the State as a Welfare State and it is not, therefore an industry. That judgment was delivered by two judges Bench. Earlier decision of a larger benches of the Apex Court regarding the scope of 'industry' in 2(j) of the Industrial Disputes Act and the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act were not adversed to therein.

(3.) The question as to what is an industry, had been considered several years earlier by a seven Judges Bench of the Supreme Court in the case of Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board v. A. Rajappa, 1978 1 LLJ 349. It was laid down in that decision, inter alia, that: