MAHARASHTRA GENERAL KAMGAR UNION Vs. ALL INDIA HANDLOOM FABRICS MARKETING CO OPERATIVE SOCIETY LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition under Article 226 of the Constitution impugns the second respondents verdict upon a complaint under the Maharashtra Recognition of Trade Unions and Prevention of Unfair Labour Practices Act, 1971 (PULP Act ).

(2.) THE first respondent - hereinafter referred to as the employer or Society is a Government of India sponsored body to arrange for the more advantageous marketing of fabrics manufactured by handloom weavers scattered all over the country. It has established sales depots at various places and those in Bombay included the one located at the Dadabhai Nawroji Road. This depot was gutted in a fire that broke out on 16th October, 1982. The fire left the employer with a depot at Mahim in Bombay. The 155 employees working in the D. N. Road depot were without work. For some time there was a lay-off. Sixty two employees were transferred to depots outside Bombay. The Society converted an office at the Janmabhoomi Chambers into a sales depot and some of the laid-off employees were shifted thereto. The petitioner Union on 30-3-1985 applied to the Society to accord recognition to it as the sole representative of the employees claiming that it had the support of a majority of the workers. The Society on 10-4-1985 issued a circular inviting applications from its employees at all depots for voluntary transfers to Coimbatore, Jaipur and Surat where it proposed to open new depots. Transfer orders impugned in the petition were issued to seven workmen - three being transferred to Jaipur and four to Coimbatore. The orders explained the transfers as being necessitated by the curtailment of the Societys business at Bombay making the staff here surplus and the employers desire to utilise their experience in the new sales depots in the above cities. The Unions complaint impugning the transfers as an unfair labour practice having been dismissed, it has approached this Court. After the rejection of interim relief, petitioner moved a Division Bench in appeal and secured an interim injunction staying the operation of the transfer orders.

(3.) THE Union assails the transfers as being actuated by a desire to wreak vengeance upon the workmen for having shifted their allegiance to it and also ensuring that of the majority of their colleagues. Next was the desire of the Depot Manager (Vimal Raut) at Bombay to have her own favourites here by displacing the persons figuring in the transfer list. This was made clear in her letter at Ex. C. The proximity in time between the two events and the transfer orders established a clear case of mala fides. Therefore, the transfers were not a legitimate exercise of the employers power to deploy personnel. This apart, the selection of those transferred showed no rationale at work. The same was haphazard and whimsical. No rule or terms of contract permitted the Society to transfer any worker contrary to his wishes. The so-called need to curtail the staff at Bombay was a myth and in any case a short-term reduction in the business did not empower the Society to effect transfers. The transfers were an unfair labour practice (ULP) under Item 3 of Schedule IV to the PULP Act. The Society denied the contentions summarised above. It maintained that the gutting of the D. N. Road depot had brought about a sizable decline in its business at Bombay. It had tried alternatives to prevent the employees from facing unemployment. Having exhausted all alternatives, it had to take recourse to the solution of transferring a few employees. The coming into power of the petitioner Union had nothing to do with the making of the transfer orders. The Society had to contend with trade unions since long and petitioners predecessors were as devoted to the workers causes as was the petitioner. It had the power to effect transfers and there was no irrationality vitiating the transfer of the employees represented by the petitioner.