SANTOSH DATTARAM NADKARNI Vs. NEW INDIA INDUSTRIES LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioners were the employees of the respondent No. 1 /company. The respondent Nos. 2 and 3 are Directors of the said Company since 15th july, 2002, and prior to that date, the respondent No. 4 was its Chairman, while the respondent No. 5 was the Accounts Manager. A complaint under m. R. T. U. and P. U. L. P. Act bearing No. 185 of 2001 came to be filed by the petitioners against the said Company on 26/02/2001. Since the application for interim relief filed in the said complaint was rejected by the Industrial court on 30/07/2001, a petition was filed being Writ Petition No. 2473 of 2001. In the said Petition, the parties arrived at amicable settlement and accordingly filed consent terms in the form of minutes of the order and the learned single Judge of this Court, by its order dated 30/12/2001, while accepting the undertaking given in the said consent terms, disposed of the said writ petition in accordance with the said consent terms. The undertaking by the respondent No. 1 was to pay to the petitioners on or before 30th November, 2002, the amount of VRS, with interest as stated in cl. (1) of the consent terms. The order passed on 3rd December, 2001 specificifically recorded that the undertaking given in cl. (2), was accepted by the Court. The relevant clauses viz. (1)and (2) of the consent terms read thus :-

(2.) IT is the case of the petitioners that till this date, the respondents have not paid the said amount and the interest thereon to the petitioners and thereby have wilfully violated the said order and have committed breach of the undertaking given by them to the Court and accepted by the Court, and therefore, they are liable to be punished for contempt of Court. Prima facie case being made out, show cause notice came to be issued to the respondents/contemners on 13th February, 2003 in response to which the respondents filed their replies.

(3.) THE reply by the respondent Nos. 1 to 3 is that they joined as the Directors of the respondent No. 1 since 15th July, 2002 and, therefore, they were not the Directors at the time of signing of the consent terms. At the time of change in management of the company from the respondent No. 4 to the respondent nos. 2 and 3, the alleged claim of the workers i. e. the petitioners herein, was not disclosed to them. They came to know about the writ petition and the consent terms filed therein by the earlier management only when they received the show cause notices in these proceedings. It is their further case that the claim of the petitioners has not been adjudicated and even the contents of the consent terms does not specify as to what is the exact amount claimed by the petitioners. Apart from the fact that there is no executable order, in any case, the contempt proceedings cannot be allowed to be substitute for the execution proceedings.