SUNDAR LAL SAXENA Vs. HINDUSTAN COMMERCIAL BANK LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition for issue of a writ of certiorari under Article 226 of the Constitution.

(2.) The petitioner was employed as a sub-agent at the Kanpur main office of the Hindustan Commercial Bank, Ltd. This main office was different from the head office of the Bank. On 6-10-1947, the petitioner was suspended by the Bank. The dispute relating to this suspension was placed by the U. P. Bank Employees Union before the U. P. Government which, under Section 3, Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, referred it for decision to an adjudicator. The adjudicator held the petitioner to be a workman and gave an award declaring that the petitioner was entitled to the withdrawal of the order of suspension and further that he was entitled to his full salary with all allowances, except the conveyance allowance, and all privileges with regard to the provident fund, leave bonus etc., during his period of suspension. This award was enforced and the petitioner was re-employed by the Bank. He was paid all his duos, except the amounts which accrued to him as annual increments in salary and the consequential increase in the dear food allowance. Certain other relief arising out of an award of the All India Industrial Tribunal (Bank Disputes), Bombay, was also not granted to him. The petitioner then represented his case again but this time to the Union Government through the U. P. Bank Employees Union. While these proceedings were going on, the petitioner was dismissed by the Bank on 9-9-1950. The petitioner thereupon took his case of wrongful dismissal also to the Central Government. Under a notification, dated 21-2-1950, the Government of India referred an industrial dispute to the Industrial Tribunal at Calcutta for adjudication and it is the case of the petitioner that, under this order, his case was also referred to that Tribunal. The Tribunal, however, held that the petitioner was not a workman within the meaning of that word as used in the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, and, consequently, refused to pass any orders in favour of the petitioner. The petitioner went up in appeal to the Labour Appellate Tribunal of India which also dismissed his appeal on the same ground. The petitioner has filed this petition in this Court, challenging the correctness of this order of the Labour Appellate Tribunal on the ground that the Tribunal had wrongly refused to exercise its jurisdiction for awarding the reliefs to the, petitioner which he had claimed in the proceedings before the Calcutta Tribunal and the Labour Appellate Tribunal.

(3.) "When this petition came up for admission, a preliminary question arose as to whether, in this case, there had been any refusal by the Labour Appellate Tribunal, or, by the Industrial Tribunal at Calcutta, to exercise jurisdiction vested in them so that a writ of certiorari could be issued. The question was argued at great length by Shri D. Sanyal in connection with' civil Misc. writ no. 570 of 1952 and his arguments were adopted by the learned counsel for the petitioner in this case also. We have found it convenient to deal with the matter in detail in this writ petition and to "