SURYAPRAKASA RAO A Vs. LABOUR COURT ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution for the issue of a writ of certiorari or any other appropriate writ, direction or order to quash the award of the labour Court, Andhra Pradesh, Guntur, dated 9 November, 1957 in industrial dispute No. 6 of 1957 as notified in G.O. Ms. No. 1212, S.W. & L., dated 20 November 1957, and published in the Andhra Pradesh Gazette, dated 28 November 1957. The Government of Andhra Pradesh by G.O. Ms. No. 856, S. W. & L., dated 22 August 1957, referred to the labour Court for adjudication under S. 10(1)(c) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, the dispute between A. Suryaprakasa Rao (the petitioner herein), owner of bus No, A.D.K. 926 of Vijayawada, and bus-driver S. Subba Rao (the respondent 3 in this writ petition), represented by the City Bus Workers' Union, Vijayawada. The dispute as shown in the annexure to the above Government Order was :

(2.) In the statement of claim filed on behalf of the driver, it was alleged that he had put in a service of six years on bus No. A.D.K. 926 and bad rendered service earnestly, obediently and dutifully; but as he is a member of the City Bus Workers' Union and an ardent trade unionist participating in the activities of the union, the operator of the bus had spitefully been trying to remove him from service and was imposing extra duties on him.

(3.) It was further stated that on 9 February 1957, when, owing to ill-health, the driver could not go on extra duty, the operator discharged him from service on 17 February 1957, and that during the negotiations which followed, although the operator promised to take back the driver, he did not do so and instead gave a notice stating that the driver himself had stopped away from work. Therefore the matter was reported through the City Bus Workers' Union to the labour officer. The employer, on the other hand, in his counter averred inter alia that there was no industrial dispute as defined in S.2(k) of the Industrial Disputes Act, and that in the circumstances of the case, he was well within his rights in terminating the services of the driver. His case was that on 17 February 1957 the driver had voluntarily relinquished his service and in spite of a letter sent to him on 21 February 1957 to come and join duty and give his explanation for the sudden absence, the driver did not do so; and therefore his services were terminated on 23 February 1957, and the money due to him up to that date (Rs. 10-4-0) was sent by money order; that even during the period from 17 February 1957 to 23 February 1957, the driver was in service elsewhere and thus by his conduct, he had ceased to be a workman under the operator that this was only an attempt on the part of the union to harass the operator and that the action taken by the employer was a pure and simple case of exercising his own right as an employer against the defaulting employee, and the employee was not entitled to reinstatement or to claim any compensation.