STATE OF MAHARASHTRA Vs. V S PHADKE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE non-applicants Shri V. 3. Phadke, Shri H. S. Munje and Shri P. B. Gole are members of the Board of Directors of a limited company known as the Central Potteries Ltd,, which manufactures earthenwara articles such as jars, cups and saucers as well as articles of stone. On 33rd November 1946. the Provincial Government issued notification No. 57901434-XXVI in which it referred to the trade dispute between that concern and its employees for adjudication by Shri P. D. Deshmukh, Additional District and Sessions Judge Nagpur. In March 1947 the three non applicants issued to the Provincial Government a notice under B, 80, Civil P. C. , in which they stated that they did not admit the legality of the notification and that they were going to file a suit for a declaration that the reference to an adjudicator was illegal. Thereafter, they instituted civil suit No. 288a of 1947 in the Court of the second Civil Judge. Class II, Nagpur, on 16th June 1947; and on 20th July 1918 that Court decided that the notification was ultra vires of the Provincial Government and it restrained the Provincial Government permanently from giving effect to the award. The Provincial Government have appealed against that decision and the appellate Court has stayed execution of that part of the decree which directs the Provincial Government not to enforce the award.

(2.) ON nth March 1948 during the pendency of the suit, the non-applicants were prosecuted at the instance of the Provincial Government for having committed an offence punishable Under Section 3, Central Provinces and Berar Validation of Award and Continuance of Proceedings (Industrial Disputes) Ordinance, 1947; and charges were in due course framed against them by the First Class Magistrate with 8. SO powers, Nagpur. The non. applioonta thereafter went up in revision to the Sessions Judge, Nagpur, and he has now reported the cases Under Section 438, Criminal P. C. , with a recommendation that the charges framed against the non-applicants be quashed on the ground of illegality.

(3.) THE reasons given by the learned Sessions Judge are as follows. Before Defence of India Rule 81a was amended by Notification no. 1408-Or/42 dated 23rd May 1912, the Provincial Government had power to refer any trade dispute for adjudication in case of any undertaking, but in virtue of that amendment the Provincial Government lost the power to refer a trade dispute for adjudication in respect of any undertaking. Two conditions for reference to an adjudicator had to be fulfilled; viz. , (i) Defence of India Rule 81-A should be made applicable to a particular area and (ii) the supply of the commodity manufactured or of the service rendered by the undertaking should be essential to the life of the community, if the object of the reference to the adjudicator was not the maintenance of order or public safety,