T SANJEEVI Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners, T. Sanjeevy and Krishnapada Chatterjee, were employees of the Himalayan Aviation Ltd.--Respondent No. 4. By two notices of November, 1951 and March, 1952, Respondent No. 4 terminated the services of the Petitioners whereupon the Petitioners moved the Labour Commissioner, and a conciliation proceeding for settlement of the industrial dispute arising out of that order of termination of services was started. During the pendency of the said conciliation proceeding the undertaking of Respondent No. 4 was transferred to and vested in the Indian Airlines Corporation.--Respondent No. 3,--with effect from the 1st of August, 1953, under the provisions of the Air Corporations Act, 1953. Failing conciliation, the dispute was eventually referred for adjudication to the Sixth Industrial Tribiunal, West Bengal, and the Indian Airlines Corporation was made a party in that proceeding. After a remand by the Labour Appellate Tribunal, holding that the proceeding was maintainable against Respondent No. 4 but not against Respondent No. 3, the dispute was determined by an award of the Sixth Industrial Tribunal dated the 4th October, 1956 (Ann. C to the Petition), by which the termination of services of the Petitioners was held to be unjustified and they were directed to be reinstated by Respondent No. 4, and it was further ordered that the Petitioners were to be paid their arrears of wages for a specified period. On further applications by the Petitioners under Section 33C(2) of the Act, the First Labour Court computed the arrears of wages payable by Respondent No. 4 at Rupees 11,992/8 annas payable to Petitioner No. 1 and Rs. 9,712/8 annas payable to Petitioner No. 2.

(2.) The Petitioner's grievance is that in spite of repeated demands, Respondent No. 1, the State of West Bengal, has tailed to enforce the award of the Tribunal as well as the orders of the Labour Court dated the 27th September, 1957 to recover the computed amounts payable in terms of the award from Respondent No. 4 or its successor, the Indian Airlines Corporation (Respondent No. 3). The petitioners, accordingly, pray for orders in the nature of mandamus directing the State to enforce the award of the 4th of October, 1956, and to issue a certificate to the Collector of Calcutta (Respondent No .5) to recover the computed money and further directing the Collector to proceed to recover the said money from Respondent No. 4 or Respondent No. 3.

(3.) The State Government alone is opposing this petition by a counter affidavit filed by its Assistant Secretary in the Department of Labour. I. The main ground of opposition is that the State Government has done its duty in the matter of recovery of the computed amount, by issuing a certificate under the Public Demands Recovery Act, 1913, to the Certificate Officer, 24 Parganas. The duty of the Government in this behalf is, of course, as provided in Section 33C(1) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947- "..... it shall issue a certificate of that amount to the Collector who shall proceed to recover the same in the same manner as an arrear of land revenue." 3a. It has been rightly contended on behalf of the Petitioner that by issuing a certificate to the "Certificate Officer", 24 Parganas, there has not been a compliance with the above provision. This is obvious from the definition of the word 'Collector' as given in Section 3 of the General Clauses Act, 1897, which will come in aid for the interpretation of the word 'Collector' in Section 33C of the Industrial Disputes Act, since the latter enactment does not provide any definition of that word. The "Collector", according to the General Clauses Act, means "the chief officer in charge of the revenue administration of a district". That the 'Certificate Officer' of a district may not necessarily be the Collector himself, i.e., the chief revenue officer, will be evident if we refer to the definition of a 'Certificate Officer in Section 3(3) of the Public Demands Recovery Act, 1913, which is as follows: