TULSIDAS P KHERAJ Vs. ASSOCIATION OF ENGINEERING WORKERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition reflects how the process of law and the Court can be abused to harass a party which is ex facie neither necessary nor a proper party to the litigation in the form of complaint filed by the respondent No. 1 Union under section 23 of the M. R. T. U. and P. U. L. P. Act, 1971 under Items 1 (b) and 2 (a) of Schedule II and Item 9 of Schedule IV of the M. R. T. U. and P. U. L. P. Act, 1971 filed against only one M/s. Salvi Super the employer of the employees who were represented by the complainant Union, respondent No. 1 in the present petition. This complaint was filed by the complainant Union against the respondent employer in the year 1964. The petitioner respondent Nos. 2, 3 and 4 in the complaint were subsequently impleaded as respondents in the year 1994 being necessary and proper party to the complaint. By an order dated 1-2-1994 on the application made by the complainant Union to implead the said respondents, who are the petitioners in the present petition. Since the petitioners were not heard before they were impleaded as respondents in the complaint they filed an application before the Industrial Court to discharge them from the complaint as they were neither necessary nor proper party in the complaint. The Industrial Court however by its order dated 7-8-1995 refused to discharge them on some curious ground and curious logic that the order impleading them in the complaint should have been challenged by them in the High Court and that they should not have filed the said application before that Court to get themselves discharged from the complaint.

(2.) THE petitioners are aggrieved by the aforesaid two orders of the Industrial Court. Shri Kamdar, the learned Counsel for the petitioners has furnished the following dates and events of the checkered history of the present litigation.

(3.) FROM the aforesaid facts and events, which are not disputed, it is clear that the petitioners are the owners of the suit land and the structure which was given on lease to the firm known as M/s. Salvi Super, which was a Proprietary concern running the business in the premises as lessee. There is no dispute that the said M/s. Salvi Super, the respondent No. 2 before me and the respondent No. 2 before the Industrial Court, did not own the suit land and the suit structure and that he was only a lessee under the lease agreements between the parties. There is no dispute that the petitioners had absolutely no concern with the business of the said M/s. Salvi Super. There is also no dispute that the petitioners were not the employers of the employees employed by the said M/s. Salvi Super and still the petitioners were dragged in the complaint of unfair labour practice filed by the respondent No. 1 Union before me to implead the petitioners as necessary and proper party.