RAI SAHEB REKCHAND MOHOTA SPG AND WVG MILLS P LTD Vs. LABOUR COURT THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA AT NAGPUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this petition under articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution, the petitioner, which is a limited company, has prayed for a writ of certiorari to quash the order of the Labour Court whereby it has directed to pay-off compensation to the respondents workmen.

(2.) THE petitioner company owns and runs a textile mill at Hinganghat, district Wardha. The respondents nos. 2 to 99 were employees of petitioner mill and were working in the third shift of the mill during the relevant period. The Maharashtra State Electricity Board intimated to the mill its inability to supply electric current between 8 and 9 p. m. during a certain period and requested the petitioner mill to extend the half hour's recess of the second shift by making it for one hour from 8 p. m. to 9 p. m. The petitioner had therefore to extend the second shift from midnight to 12. 30 a. m. for the period from 5-8-1964 to 13-8-1964. Accordingly, a notice was put up to intimate the respondents that the third shift would only be for six hours instead of six and a half hours from 12. 30 a. m. to 7 a. m. This change remained in force during that period and the original working hours were resumed from 14-8-1964. The respondent-workmen had lost their wages and proportionate allowance for the period of half an hour by which the working hours were cut down during the period. Excluding one day on which the respondents-workmen worked for the full period of the shift because it was a day prior to the holiday and excluding one weekly holiday, the total loss of work of each of the respondents was three and a half hours. Each of the respondents applied to the Labour Court under section 33c (2) of the Industrial Disputes Act. , 1947, for lay-off compensation in respect of three and a half hours in all for that period. The petitioner mill contested the claim of the respondents on several grounds. The principal contention of the petitioner was that this closure of work for half an hour on those seven days did not and could not amount to a "lay-off" within the meaning of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, and no compensation could be claimed by or awarded to the respondents with respect to that closure. The learned Judge of the Labour Court overruled these contentions of the petitioner and granted lay-off compensation for this period of three and half hours, as prayed, because there was no dispute with regard to the quantum. The correctness and legality of that order are the subject-matter of challenge in this writ petition.

(3.) IN order to appreciate the submissions made on behalf of the petitioner it would be necessary to refer to certain provisions of Chapter V-A of the Industrial Disputes Act with regard to lay-off as given in section 2 (kkk ). We are referring to those provisions as they stood before the amendment of that Act in 1964. Section 25-A mentioned certain establishments to which the provisions of sections 25c to 25e were not applicable and admittedly the petitioner was not one of those establishments. It was not disputed that the provisions of sections 25c to 25e with regard to lay-off were applicable to the petitioner in case the other requisite conditions were satisfied. The respondents-workmen had completed more than one section 25b. Section 25c, which gives the right of compensation to laid-off workmen, was in the following words: "25c. (1) Whenever a workman (other than badli workman or a casual workman) whose name is borne on the muster rolls of an industrial establishment and who has completed not less than one year of continuous service under an employer is laid off, he shall be paid by the employer for all days during which he is so laid off, except for such weekly holidays as may intervene, compensation which shall be equal to fifty percent of the total of the basic wages and dearness allowance that would have been payable to him had been so laid off". (We are not quoting the proviso and the Explanation which are not relevant ).