WORKMEN REPRESENTED BY GENL. SECY. OF WEST BENGAL CARD BOARD AND PRINTING MAZDOORS UNION Vs. M/S. THE CARD BOARD BOX MANUFACTURING COMPANY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The workmen of the Cardboard Box Manufacturing Company, represented by the General Secretary of the Mazdoor Union thereof, have obtained this rule under Art. 227 of the Constitution, calling upon the Company and the First Industrial Tribunal to show cause why the award entered by the latter on April 2, 1964, and published in the Calcutta Gazette on April 30 following, under Sec. 17 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 14 of 1947, should not be set aside.

(2.) Of the three issues referred to the Tribunal for adjudication, the first one is on the propriety of dismissal of 10 workmen, including one Sadhan Das. Mr. Dhar, appearing for the petitioning Union, does not press the rule, so far as Sadhan is concerned. Of the remaining nine, what Mr. Dhar contends for is this: These nine workmen, while working in the Cossipore factory of the Company, were ordered on July 8, 1963, to join the Madhyamgram factory of the Company on July 9, 1963 - which they did not do, with the result that they were dismissed, after a domestic inquiry, in the usual way. The Tribunal finds:

(3.) Mr. Bhattacharyya appearing for the Company opposite party, says that all these nine workmen have been reinstated without any break in their service. If that is so, here is an end of the dispute. But Mr. Dhar's contention is deserving of an answer. And there appears to be more than one answer. First: the rule to be called in aid here is not the general rule about disobedience to any lawful and reasonable order - the rule Mr, Dhar wants me to go by - but the special rule embodied in sub-clause (xxiii), clause (b), Rule 10, of the Standing Orders, providing inter alia that a workman may be dismissed, if he is guilty of -