KRISHNA GOPAL BHATAWADEKER Vs. IMPERAL BANK OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition by an employee of what was once the Imperial Bank of India and is now the State Bank of India, challenging the decision of the Labour Appellate Tribunal with regard to a question which arises out of the Bank award given by the Sastri tribunal. It appears that two demands were put forward by the employees of the Imperial Bank with regard to the pension fund. In order to understand these demands it is necessary to consider the history of this fund. Up to 1931 the pension fund was maintained by the bank out of its own revenues. But after 1931 the bank passed a resolution to the effect that every employee who wanted to join this pension fund must contribute 5 per cent of his salary to this fund and, therefore, after 1931 the pension fund was maintained by the contributions of the bank and the 5 per cent contributed by the employees. In connexion with this fund two demands put forward by the employees of the Imperial Bank were (1) that the employees' compulsory contribution should be stopped and (2) that the amounts contributed till now must be refunded to them. The Sastri tribunal was satisfied with the justice of the employees' demands with regard to their compulsory contribution and their view was that the Imperial Bank was sufficiently financially sound to pay the pension out of its own revenues and it should not insist upon contributions from its employees and, therefore, they came to the conclusion as evidenced by Para. 403 of the award that the 5 per cent contribution for the pension fund by a workman should now be stopped. Then the tribunal goes on to observe that they would have provided for the abolition of this contribution in the pension fund itself, if it had been agreed to by the bank or if it had been legally possible. They could not give this direction in the absence of the trustees of the pension fund in whom the pension fund was vested and the tribunal goes on to say that

(2.) NOW, what is urged by Mr. Phadke is that this direction clearly means that the award of the tribunal was that the bank should refund to its employees all the contributions they had made to the pension fund from 1931 onwards. With every sympathy that we have for the employees of the bank we find it extremely difficult to accept that contention put forward by Mr. Phadke. There is evidence in this part of Para. 403 itself that the tribunal did not and could not have given that direction. But apart from Para. 403, there is ample evidence in the other parts of the award which equally makes it clear that this particular direction was limited to the refund by way of special gratuity of contributions made by the employees to the pension fund after this award and after the decision of the tribunal. When the tribunal says that they have discovered a particular device to achieve the same object, we must ask ourselves what is the objective that the tribunal wanted to achieve and the earlier part of Para. 403 makes it quite clear that the objective was that the further contributions to this pension fund on the part of the employees should stop. The tribunal points out the difficulties in the way of their carrying out that objective in the ordinary simple manner by giving a direction to the bank to stop the contributions and confronted with the legal difficulties in the interests of the employees they resort to a device by which they direct the bank to pay a gratuity to the employees. In our opinion, it is impossible to accept the contention of Mr. Phadke that the gratuity which the tribunal directed was not a gratuity with regard to contributions made to the pension fund after the date of the award but the gratuity related to all the contributions made by the employees from 1931 onwards. We must find somewhere in the award itself a decision on merits by the tribunal with regard to the specific claim put forward by the employees that the past contributions should be refunded. In Para. 403 they are not dealing with that demand at all. They are dealing with the first demand, viz. , that the employees' compulsory contribution should be stopped. With regard to the second demand, i. e. , the amounts contributed till now must be refunded to them, the same is dealt with in the latter part of the report to which we shall presently come. Then dealing further with Para. 403, they deal with and dismiss the objection of Mr. Lawrie who appeared on behalf of the Imperial Bank of India to the suggestion that this gratuity should be paid and they finally express their opinion that an extra special gratuity directed by them under this paragraph is, therefore, just and reasonable. This paragraph appears in Chap. XIX of the award which deals with item 14 of the demands of the employees of the banks, which demand is concerned with gratuity and it is rather significant that whereas they are dealing with the question of pension, they should have incorporated this directive in the chapter of gratuity. But these was a reason why they did it because, as we have already pointed out, they could not legally accede to the demand of the employees with regard to the abolition of the contributions to the pension fund and as they could not do that but as the tribunal felt that they could achieve the same result by giving a special gratuity they incorporated this directive in Chap. XIX and conceded this demand of the employees in the form of a gratuity. Then Chap. XX, the next chapter, deals with the pension scheme and Para. 411 sets out the four demands, two of which have already been referred to which are germane to the arguments before us and then we come to Para. 413 and in that paragraph they deal with arguments of Mr. Niren De from Calcutta who appeared for the employees and they say that

(3.) IN our opinion there is a clear concession by counsel that as far as the second demand referred to in Para. 411 is concerned, that demand was not being pressed and the right to take appropriate proceedings in some other matter or in some other court or tribunal was being reserved by counsel. Therefore, having disposed of the second demand on the concession made by counsel in Para. 414, the tribunal proceeds to consider the first demand which is the demand with regard to the compulsory contributions being stopped. Then they deal with the merits of the matter and they say towards the close of this paragraph that "agreeing with the view of Sri Gupta and also of the Sen Tribunal we are of opinion that the employees' contributions should be stopped. " Then again they refer to the legal difficulty and they repeat the same language which they have repeated in Para. 403 :