SRI T.D. RAMAYYA PANTULU, INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNAL FOR ENGINEERING FIRMS AND TYPE FOUNDRIES Vs. KUTTY AND RAO (ENGINEER) LTD. AND ANR.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ON the 5th March, 1948, by G. O. Mis. No. 1115, the Government issued a notification which runs,

(2.) THERE is no doubt that this notification is a valid one under Section 7, in that it gives jurisdiction to a particular Tribunal over the whole of the Province of Madras with regard to disputes arising in engineering firms and type foundries; but the question immediately before us is whether it is equally valid under Section 10(1) of the Act.

(3.) THERE is another reason for holding that the order was not competent and that is that when a notification is issued and a reference made to a Tribunal, the Government must have in mind some dispute that has actually happened or one that is likely to arise from circumstances known to the Government. It has been argued by the learned Advocate -General that although the Government might know from enquiry the nature of already existing disputes, it cannot foresee what disputes are likely to occur in the future. We cannot agree; for before concluding that a dispute is apprehended, the Government must necessarily have known that certain demands were being made by workers in a particular firm and that the management of that firm were not inclined to comply with those demands and that an industrial dispute was therefore likely to arise. Moreover, it is most unlikely in this case, that the Government had made enquiries of managements or workers in all the engineering firms and type foundries in the Province and had assured themselves that either disputes already existed or that they were likely to occur in the future. It is true, as the learned Advocate -General has argued, that if a dispute arises in one industry, especially if it relates to a demand for higher wages, and that demand is complied with, there is likely to be a similar demand made by workers doing similar work in other firms of a like nature. But that argument would apply to workers in general in all industries. If the standard of living is raised for a particular body of workers, workers exercising the same degree of skill in other works and industries will naturally, in due course, make similar demands. However that may be, it seems to us, on a fair reading of Section 10, that the Government must have reason to believe that in a particular business a definite dispute is known to exist or is apprehended by reason of demands and discussions taking place amongst the workers and management.