EMPLOYERS IN RELATION TO NEW GHIRIMIRI PONRI HILL COLLIERY Vs. WORKMEN REPRESENTED BY THE M P KOYALA MAZDOOR PANCHAYAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution for a writ of certiorari and other suitable directions to quash the award-dated April 17, 1967, made by Shri G. C. Agarwala, Presiding Officer of the Central Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court, Jabalpur, in the matter of an industrial dispute between the employers of New Chirimiri Ponri Hill Colliery (hereinafter called the 'Colliery'), and their workmen.

(2.) THE Government of India in the Ministry of Labour and Employment, referred the following dispute to the Central Government Industrial Tribunal, Bombay, by a notification dated September 10, 1965 :-

(3.) THE question arose in the present case before the insertion of section 2-A in the Industrial Disputes Act by the Industrial Disputes (Amendment) Act, 1965 (Act No. 35 of 1965). Under the new section 2-A, even an individual dispute, arising out of discharge, dismissal, retrenchment or termination, in an industrial dispute notwithstanding that no other workmen or any union of workmen is a party to the dispute. But, before the enactment of this new section, it was established by a long line of decisions that an individual dispute could not, per se, be an industrial dispute; it could be one, if the cause was espoused by a registered Trade Union or an appreciable number of workmen. THE Industrial Disputes Act contemplates primarily that the machinery it provides can be set in action to settle only such disputes as involve the rights of workmen as a class. Before an individual dispute can be called an industrial dispute it has to be seen whether the workmen concerned or the workmen sponsoring his cause satisfy the conditions of section 2(A) of the Act. THE workmen have the right of collective bargaining with regard to various matters in which they are interested. Collective bargaining is "an agreement between a single employer or an association of employers on the one hand, and a labour union upon the other, which regulates the terms and conditions of employment", (per Ludwig Teller on Labour Disputes and Collective Bargaining, Vol. I, page 476).