BASKAR MENDON Vs. SADASHIV NARAYAN SHETTY & ORS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition raises an important question of law concerning the nature of a proceeding before a labour court or an industrial tribunal in a reference made to it by the appropriate Government under Section 10 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 whether such proceeding can be termed as a proceeding in any court within the meaning of Section 195(1) (b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The question arises on a challenge to an order passed by the Labour Court on a miscellaneous application for initiating an enquiry under Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and thereafter making an appropriate complaint under Section 195(1)(b) to the competent court. By the impugned order, the Labour Court rejected the application as untenable, presumably on the footing that the Labour Court was not a court to entertain such application.

(2.) Before we deal with this issue of law, facts of the case may be noted only so far as they are relevant for our purpose. The reference (Reference (IDA) No.382 of 2006) was filed before the Labour Court at the instance of the Petitioner herein and six others, who claimed to be workmen working in the canteen of Respondent No.3 herein. It was the case of the Petitioner and others that though they were employed in the canteen through different contractors, the contracts between Respondent No.3 and these contractors were sham and bogus and in fact the workmen were direct employees of Respondent No.3. The Petitioner filed the present application under Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure on the ground that Respondent Nos. 1 and 3 herein, who were said to be accused Nos. 1 and 3, respectively, in the application, had intentionally made a false statement in their written statement rendering them liable to be tried for offences under Sections 191, 193, 199 and 200 of Indian Penal Code. The Petitioner's case was that since the false statement was made in a judicial proceeding, the accused could only be tried on a complaint made by the Court under Section 195(1) (b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The Petitioner, accordingly, prayed for a complaint to be made in writing by the Labour Court and forwarded to a Magistrate of First Class having jurisdiction to try offences under Sections 191, 193, 196, 199 and 200 of the Indian Penal Code. The Labour Court, as noted above, rejected the application as not tenable. That order is challenged in the present petition.

(3.) Chapter XI of the Indian Penal Code ("IPC") deals with offences dealing with false evidence and public justice. Section 191 defines giving of false evidence. Section 193 provides for punishment for false evidence. It is in two parts. Under the first paragraph, whoever intentionally gives false evidence in any stage of a judicial proceeding, or fabricates false evidence for the purpose of being used in any stage of a judicial proceeding, is to be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, and is also to be liable to fine. The second paragraph deals with intentionally giving or fabricating false evidence in any other case, where the punishment is by either description for a term which may extend to three years, and also fine. The section has two explanations. Explanation 1 makes a trial before a Courtmartial a judicial proceeding, whilst Explanation 2 makes an investigation directed by law preliminary to a proceeding before a Court of Justice, a stage of a judicial proceeding, even if such investigation itself does not take place before a Court of Justice. It is immediately apparent from these provisions that we are concerned here with a "judicial proceeding" and in particular, a stage of a judicial proceeding and not with the term "court" or a proceeding before a court or its stage. As the Explanations indicate, for a proceeding to be a judicial proceeding, it is not necessary that it must be conducted in "court". The expression 'judicial proceeding', though not defined in IPC, is defined in Section 2(i) of the Criminal Procedure Code to include any proceeding in the course of which evidence is or may be legally taken on oath. The scheme of Sections 191 and 193, thus, conceives of proceedings in the course of which evidence is or may be legally taken on oath, though such proceedings need not, however, be before a court. We need not, however, labour over this much for considering applicability of Section 193 in the present case, since, for our purposes, a reference before a Labour Court is without doubt a judicial proceeding. Subsection (3) of Section 11 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 provides that every enquiry or investigation by a Board, Court, Labour Court, Tribunal or National Tribunal in any existing or apprehended industrial dispute shall be deemed to be a judicial proceeding within the meaning of Section 193 of the Indian Penal Code. Any false evidence intentionally given in any stage of an enquiry in a reference or any false evidence fabricated for the purpose of being used in any enquiry in a reference, thus, attracts punishment under the first paragraph of Section 19