KAMGAR AND MAJOOR SANGH Vs. LABOUR SECRETARY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) WE have heard Mr. Gonsalves for the petitioner, Mr. Agarwal for the Respondent nos. 1 to 4 and Mr. Khatri for Respondent No. 5. By consent the names of the Respondent nos. 6 to 10 are deleted.

(2.) THE 1st Petitioner is a trade union which claims to represent majority of 600 workers employed by Respondent No. 5 company in their factory at Umargaon. The Petitioner claims that most of the workers are adivasis and some of them are migrants from U. P. , M. P. , and Bihar. The Petitioner has alleged that the migrant workers were deprived of their legal dues and wages and faced with starvation they have returned to their home in despair. Only 200 workers are now remaining most of whom are adivasis from the local area. The petitioner states that though the company claims to have closed its factory from May 1,1999 but no notice was displayed and the workers continued to work till July 1999. The company failed to comply with the provisions of Section 25-O of the Industrial Disputes Act as there were more than 100 workers working in the factory and the company was required to seek permission before closing down the factory. The wages of the workers were stopped from June 1999. The Petitioner states that the workers immediately approached the administrator in August for recovery of wages for the months of June/july 1999 and requested for restarting the factory. The administrator directed the Resident Dy. Collector-RDC-Mr. Ramesh Chandra to investigate and conciliate in the dispute. Mr. Ramesh Chandra however, took no steps. On the contrary he informed the management of attempts of the workers to have their dispute referred for adjudication. In order to pre-empt the workers the management got a group of 5 workers together and these workers took signatures of the remaining workers on blank piece of paper telling the workers that their signatures are necessary for filing case. Using these signatures conciliatioh Officer and the management prepared settlement falsely claiming that these workers represented the other workers and that the workers are agreeable to the settlement. No general body meeting of the workers was ever held. The Petitioner has alleged that the settlement is completely fraudulent and is therefore liable to be set aside. The Petitioner has made several representations to the administrator but to no effect and therefore the Petitioner has filed the present petition under Article 226 of the constitution.

(3.) BASICALLY the Petitioner is seeking direction to Respondent Nos. 1 to 4 to refer the industrial dispute raised by the union for adjudication. The Petitioner is also seeking direction to the Respondent No. 1 company to deposit the entire dues of the workers as per the settlement and a further direction to the labour Commissioner to verify the dues of the workers and to distribute the same to them, without prejudice to their rights in the reference. A direction is also sought that pending the reference the Respondent No. 5 should not sell, transfer or alienate the assets of the company without the permission of this court and should not evict the workers from theirquarters.