PRAGA TOOLS LIMITED KAVADIGUDA ROAD SECUNDERABAD Vs. SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT HOMELABOURI DEPARTMENT GOVERNMENT OF ANDHRA PRADESH HYDERABAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 1. C. Nagabhushanam, an employee of Praga Tools Limited, was dismissed from service. There was a futile attempt at conciliation by the Conciliation Officer.After considering the report of the Conciliation Officer, the Government declined to make a reference for adjudication under Sec. 12(5) of the INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES ACT, 1947. A few months later, after receiving a further representation from Nagabhushanam, the Government by G.O.Ms. No. 889 dated 12-7-1971 referred for adjucication to the Labour court, Hyderabad, under Sec.10(1 (c) of the Act, the dispute "whether the termination of the services of the workman Sri C. Nagabhushanam by the Management of Praga Tools Limited is justified? Before the Labour court, the Management promptly raised a preliminary objection that there was no industrial dispute since the Government ilself had earlier declined to make a reference and no fresh facts bad since been brought to light justifying the later reference, The Management invited the labour court to decide the preliminary objection as a preliminary issue. The labour court declined to decide the question as a preliminary issue on the ground that such a course would unnecessarily prolong the proceedings and was therefore not desirable. The management has ccme forward with the present application for the issue of a writ to quash the order of the labour court. The Management claims that the labour court ought to have decided the question as to jurisdiction as a preliminary issue.

(2.) Relying on the observations of the Supreme Court in Express Newspapers v. Their workmen and staff Sri P.R. Ramachandrarao, learned counsel for the Management urged that the labour court was under a duty to decide the jurisdictional question as a preliminary issue. All that the Supreme court said was that where preliminary questions of jurisdiction were raised, the decision of jurisdictional facts was best left to the special tribunal without the High Court appropriating to itself that initial jurisdiction of the Special Tribunal. There can, of course, be no doubt that it is desirable to decide questions of jurisdiction as preliminary issues But desirability is one thing and duty is another, and desirability is again a matter best left to the discretion of the tribunal. An industrial tribunal is a special tribunal invested with special jurisdiction. Industrial law is a branch of the law aimed at securing industrial peace and social justice, where technical rules and the (some times) unnatural standards of ordinary civil law have no place and cannot be allowed to make inroads. A High Court hearing an application under Art. 225 of the Constitution is not necessarily the best judge of how the Industrial tribunal should proceed.

(3.) It is not for the High Court hearing an application under Article 226 to tell the tribunal what course it should adopt. That would be an exscessive and undue interference with the freedom of the special tribunal to charter its own course.