BHALACHANDRA LABORATORY Vs. N R JOSHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The services of the respondent who was employed by the petitioner as a medical representative were terminated by the petitioner by their letter d/ 17-5-1967. The Government of Andhra Pradesh referred to the Labour Court, Hyderabad the question "whether the termination of services af Shri, N. R Joshi, Medical representative by the Management of Dr. Bhalachandra Laboratory, Bombay is justified". "If not to what relief he is entitled"? The Industrial Tribunal passed an award on 9-9-1968 directing reinstatement of the respondent in service with back wages etc. The management has filed the present application for the issue of a Writ to quash the Award.

(2.) Sri. A. Krishna Murthy, learned counsel for the petitioner raised four points before me. (') The Government of Andhra Pradesh was not the appropriate Government which was entitled to make a reference under section 10 (1) (a) of the INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947 as

(3.) According to Sri A. Krishna Murthy no industrial dispute could be said to have arisen within the State of Andhra Pradesh as the petitioner had no establishment within this State ; his salary was paid from the office at Bombay and all instructions to the respondent regarding his work were issued from the office at Bombay. The learned Counsel relied on the decision of the Supreme Court in Lipton Ltd., vs. Their emplovees. In that case one of the questions was whether the Industrial Tribunal Delhi had jurisdiction to make an award in respect of the employees of the Delhi office who were employed outside the State of Delhi. On the ground that whether they worked at Delhi or not, all the workmen of Delhi Office received their salaries from the Delhi Office and were controlled from the Delhi office in the matter of leave, transfer supervision etc. The Industrial Tribunal as well as the Labour Appellate Tribunal held that the Delhi State Government was the appropriate Government within the meaning of section 2 of the INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947 relating to the dispute which arose between the Lipton Limited and the Union. The question of jurisdiction was raised before their Lordships of the Supreme Court but was not pressed. Their Lordships however said that it was their view that the Industrial Tribunal had jurisdiction to adjudicate on the dispute between the Lipton Limited and its workmen of the Delhi Office. This decision is not an authority for the proposition that whenever an employee receives his salary and instructions from an office of an employer at a particular place, the Government having jurisdiction over that place alone is the appropriate Government. The case was a case of collective dispute raised by the workmen of the estatablishment of the employer at Delhi which included workmen working outside Delhi. The decision in that case can have no application to a case like the present one where the industrial dispute is not a collective dispute, but a dispute between an individual workman and the management which is deemed to be an industrial dispute by reason of section 2-A of the INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947 which was introduced in 1965. The proper test to determine the question which Government is the appropriate Government was laid down by their Lordships of the Supreme Court in Indian Cable Company Limited vs its workmen and reiterated in Workmen vs. Hangavilas Motors (P) Ltd ,. In the second case Their Lordships observed t