MATCHWEL ELECTRICALS INDIA LTD Vs. CHIEF COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition under Article 225 of the Constitution of India by Matchwel Electricals (India), Limited, is directed against an award of the industrial tribunal, Delhi, dated 26 February 1960, and seeks to have the same set aside.

(2.) THE petitioner company at the relevant time carried on business, inter alia, of manufacturing electric fans and had a factory near the tram terminus, Subzimandi, Delhi. On 1 August 1959, when the Ministry in the State of Kerala was dismissed and the Governor's Rule promulgated there, the workmen of the petitioner company, as also the workmen of various other industries, struck work, presumably to protest against the intervention of the Central Government in Kerala affairs. The strike ended the same day and although all other workers were permitted by the petitioner company to resume duty, six of them, namely. (1) Satpal Sharma, (2) Madan Gopal Anand, (3) Jaswant Singh, (4) Sher Singh, (5) Dhani Ram, and (6) Joginder Singh, were not so permitted. The management passed orders of suspension qua these six persons and later by means of a communication, dated 27 August 1959, charge-sheeted all these six persons.

(3.) A letter, containing precisely the same charges, was sent to each of them and reads as under: With reference to your letter?you are informed that you were guilty of misconduct in so far as you were a party to a well-planned strike of the workers of the establishment on August 1959 inasmuch as you yourself abstained from work and incited others to similarly abstain from work which was connected with your political activities and had no connexion whatever with the dispute with the management or the conditions of service. The said conduct on your part amounts to a major misdemeanour within the meaning of Clause (k) of standing Order 13 of the standing orders inasmuch the abstention from work was a breach of contract to carry on work regularly and was resorted to during the pendency of conciliation proceedings before the conciliation officer, Delhi. It has been decided to hold the enquiry into the allegations and you are required to appear before a three-man enquiry committee consisting of Sri R. P. Mehrotra, Sri M. L. Chawla and Sri D. R. Dhir on 31 August 1959 at factory premises with all material evidence which you propose to rely for the purpose. If you do not appear before the said enquiry, the enquiry would be proceeded with ex parte against you.