NATIONAL ORGANIC CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES LTD. Vs. BHASKAR MENDON

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This review petition seeks review of an order and judgement passed by this Court in Writ Petition No.538 of 2018 on 8 August 2018. The review has been sought inter alia on the ground that the order and judgement suffers from an error apparent on the face of the record inasmuch as it does not consider, and is contrary to, the law stated by the Supreme Court in its judgements in Dr. Baliram Waman Hiray vs. Justice B. Lentin,1988 4 SCC 4192 and Keshab Narayan Banerjee vs. State of Bihar, 2000 1 SCC 607.

(2.) The controversy in the petition concerns an important question of law bearing on the nature of proceedings arising out of references made to labour courts or industrial tribunals by appropriate governments under Section 10 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. To be precise, the question is, whether such proceedings could be termed as proceedings in 'court' for the purposes of Section 195(1)(b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure ("Code").

(3.) This question has arisen in the context of the Petitioner's (i.e. the writ petitioner's) application against the Respondents (the review petitioners) under Section 340 of the Code, arraigning the latter as accused liable to be tried for offences under Sections 191, 193, 199 and 200 of Indian Penal Code ("IPC") for having intentionally made false statements in their written statement in a pending reference before the labour court. In his application, the Petitioner prayed for a complaint to be made in writing by the labour court and forwarded to Judicial Magistrate of First Class having jurisdiction to try offences under the abovementioned sections. The labour court rejected the application as untenable. The Respondents' argument, which appeared to have carried before the labour court, was that the labour court entertaining a reference made to it by the appropriate government, was not a 'court' for the purposes of Section 195(1) (b) of the Code and therefore, the proceeding before it, though a judicial proceeding, was not a proceeding in a 'court' within the meaning of Section 195(1)(b)(i).