M D THAKAR Vs. LABOUR APPELLATE TRIBUNAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition challenging an order passed by the Labour Appellate Tribunal granting permission to the second respondent to retrench 126 of their workmen. The few facts which lead up to this petition may be stated. On 27th May 1955 the second respondents made an application for retrenchment of 142 of their workmen to the Labour Appellate Tribunal under Section 22, and the ground put forward by them was that they wanted to shift their factory which was in Bombay to Chinchwad in Poona as they wanted to extend their factory. The Tribunal granted the application. A petition was presented against this order to this Court and this Court on the 30th June 1955 quashed the order. On the 4th July 1955 the second respondents applied to the Labour Appellate Tribunal that their application should be further heard and considered. The application was heard and permission was granted in respect of 126 workmen, and this is the order that is now sought to be challenged by this petition.

(2.) THE first ground which is a novel ground and which has been very ingeniously argued by Mr. Sule is that in law once an order has been quashed by the High Court on a writ of certiorari, no further order can be made on the application. It is contended that the result of quashing the order is to put an end to all proceedings connected with the application on which the order was made; that the record having been sent for the record remains with the High Court and no further action can be taken in. relation to that record. The argument on the face of it seems a little startling, but Mr. Sule has urged that there is high authority for the proposition and we must seriously consider it. Before we consider the authority let us be clear in our minds as to the nature of a writ of certiorari. It is a high prerogative writ which had its origin on historical grounds in England. But the purpose it serves in England now is that it enables a superior Court, a Court of record, to correct the orders and decisions of inferior Courts and inferior Tribunals discharging judicial functions. If an order is made without jurisdiction or if a Court or a Tribunal refuses to exercise jurisdiction vested in it in law, or if there is an error of law patent on the record, the High Court in England by means of the writ of certiorari corrects the errors in jurisdiction or in law of inferior Courts and Tribunals. But it is equally clear and well established that the superior Court docs not act as a Court of appeal. It docs not substitute its own order on the merits of the case for the order which it quashes of the inferior Court or Tribunal. If the order is quashed the inferior Court or Tribunal is left at large to pass any proper order in the light of the decision of the High Court. If, on the other hand, the High Court refuses to interfere on a writ of certiorari and discharges the rule and dismisses the petition, then the order of an inferior Court or Tribunal stands and assumes the necessary finality. But whether the High Court quashes the order or dismisses the petition, it exercises a limited jurisdiction and that jurisdiction under no circumstance can be comparable to the jurisdiction exercised by the High Court on the Appellate Side or even in its revisional powers under the Civil Procedure Code.

(3.) WE had occasion to point this out in a decision reported in Mahomed Usman v. Labour Appellate Tribunal, 54 Bom LR 513: (AIR 1952 Bom 443) (A ). There Mr. Justice Shah quashed the order of the Labour Appellate Tribunal and remanded the matter to the Tribunal for hearing and when the matter came in appeal Mr. Justice Bhagwati as he then was, and myself pointed out that no substantive order can be made by the High Court when it quashes the order of a judicial tribunal on a writ of certiorari, and we further pointed out that the High Court was not concerned with what would or should happen after the order of the Appellate Tribunal was quashed. A further point must be borne in mind in connection with the power of the High Court to deal with subordinate Courts and Tribunals. A very wide and extensive power is conferred upon the High Court under Art. 227 of the Constitution, a power which has never been exercised and Can never be exercised by the High Court in England. When the High Court exercises its jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution it is exercising a supervisory jurisdiction and although it may be loath to interfere lightly with the decisions of Courts and Tribunals which are made final by law, it has undoubtedly the power not only to quash the orders made by these Courts and Tribunals but to pass substantive orders in place, of the orders it has quashed or set aside. Therefore it is necessary to bear in mind, whenever a case of interference with a decision of a Labour Court or Tribunal comes up, whether the High Court is acting in exercise of jurisdiction in respect of a high prerogative writ or is acting under Article 227 of the Constitution.