BHARTIA ELECTRIC STEEL CO LTD Vs. STATE OF HARYANA THORUGH FINANCIAL COMMISSIONER AND SECRETARY TO THE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, a Public Limited Company, prays for the issue for a writ of certiorari "for quashing the order dated 7th October, 1994 annexed as Annexure P.17..." and for a declaration that "the petitioner's company unit is deemed to be closed Under Section 25(0) of the Industrial Disputes Act." The facts may be briefly noticed.

(2.) The petitioner-company is running three industrial units. Two of these units are located in the State of West Bengal. The third unit is in Faridabad (Haryana). The petitioner maintain that it is preparing a separate balance sheet for each of its units. The unit at Faridabad was set up for the production of Railway Boggies, Couplers and other castings. On account of the reduction of orders from the Indian Railways and the Ministry of defence, the faulty electric supply and the non-cooperative attitude of the labour, it was suffering losses for several years. On February 21, 1994, the petitioner submitted an application to the State Government for permission to close down the unit at Faridabad. After examination of the matter, the Government vide order dated April 18, 1994, a copy of which is at Annexure P-7 with the writ petition, found as under :-

(3.) The workmen submitted a representation dated April 20, 1994 to the Government. Soon thereafter, they filed Civil Writ Petition No, 6090 of 1994 in this Court. It was disposed of by a Division Bench of this Court vide order dated May 16, 1994. The State of Haryana was directed "to pass appropriate orders according to law on the representation, Annexure P-5 filed by the Petitioner as above." Vide order dated May 23, 1994, the State Government noticed the fact that the unit had continuously incurred losses since 1987. From October 1, 1987 to March 31, 1993, the unit had incurred losses to the tune of Rs.3,20,08,000/-. It was further found that the orders from the railways and the defence Departments had been reduced from Rs.4.58 crores to about Rs.1.50 crores. In spite of these losses, the Company had paid bonus to the workmen. The workmen had given a large number of go-slow notices. Disciplinary action was pending against some of them. After considering the matter, the Government found that "there was no ground to review the permission of closure by the Minister for Labour and Employment of 18.4.1994 which has been passed on merit and would stand as before."