MODEL WOOLLEN AND SILK MILLS Vs. INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner-firm, Model Woollen and Silk Mills, Verka, District Amritsar, are carrying on the business of manufacture of woollen and rayon textiles. Certain industrial disputes arose between them and their workers and the same were referred by the Punjab Government for adjudication to the industrial tribunal, Punjab, by means of Notification No. 80-18-C-Lab-58/26035, dated 23 July 1958. Dispute 2, as described in the aforesaid notification, was: Whether any grades or scales of pay should be fixed for the various categories of workmen? If so, what should be the grades or scales of pay and from what date these should be enforced? Also whether the workmen should be given any increments in these grades for their past service? If so, at what rate? In respect of this dispute, the petitioner-firm and their workmen came to a settlement and an award in respect of it was made by the industrial tribunal on 19 May 1959, on the basis of the said settlement. By means of this award, the workmen were divided into six categories and scales of pay in respect of each of these categories were fixed. It was further provided that: It shall be the management's function to fix different designations in any one of these categories. The management shall do it within fifteen days from 18 May 1959, and after fixing different classes or designations in these six categories, they shall put a list of the same on the notice board with a copy to the union under registered cover. The union shall submit their objections, if they have any, against any such fitting in before the management within ten days from the date of registration of notice to them. The management shall consider the objections and shall decide if all or any are acceptable to them within three days, If any objection made by the workmen or their union is not acceptable to them, then they shall furnish such objections along with their own comments and arguments to each of the three assessors, viz:

(2.) THE main ground on which the petition la based is that the impugned reference could not be made in view of the previous award, dated 19 May 1959. The petition is opposed both by the State and by the twenty-one workers mentioned in the notification. Their case is that the previous award does not, in any way, debar the Government from making the reference in question.

(3.) IT is contended by the learned Counsel for the petitioner-firm that certain scales and grades of pay have been fixed by the previous award and they are applicable to all the employees of the petitioner-firm. The award prescribed a procedure by which the employees having different designations could be placed under one or the other of the six categories each having a different scales and grade of pay. The management put the employees having different designations under different categories and objections to the same were finally decided by the three assessors named in the award by means of their order, dated 17 June 1959. He, therefore, urges that the matter of grades and scales of pay of each of the employees of the petitioner-firm was thus finally decided by means of the said award and that the present reference is, therefore, absolutely without jurisdiction. This contention seems to have some force, but it is difficult to find that the dispute, whether each of these twenty-one workers should have the designation claimed by him, was decided by the previous award or that the same cannot be made the subject-matter of a fresh reference. The previous award did not decide which designation each of the employees of the petitioner-firm should have. It is true that the scales or grades other than those mentioned in the previous award cannot be fixed for the various categories of the workmen and that the employees having designations as mentioned in the previous award shall have to be placed in the grades and scales of pay as given in the said award. However, as the previous award has not dealt with the designation of each of the employees, a dispute qua the designation of each of the employees is certainly one which falls within the ambit of S. 10 of the Industrial Disputes Act, which can be referred for adjudication to the industrial tribunal. The dispute with regard to grades and scales of pay of the various categories and the matter as to in what categories the persons having certain specific designations should be placed, cannot be referred.