WORKMEN OF JAMADOBA COLLIERY OF TATA AND STEEL COMPANY LIMITED Vs. JAMADOBA COLLIERY OF TATA IRON AND STEEL COMPANY LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application under Articles 228 and 227 of the Constitution by some of the workmen of the Jamadoba Colliery (hereinafter referred to as the company), challenging the decision of the Central Government Industrial Tribunal, Dhanbad, dated 15 August 1965 (annexure A), upholding the preliminary objection raised by the company to the validity of a reference made to the said tribunal by the Government of India under Section 10 of the Industrial Disputes Act. The Congress Mazdoor Sangh, which is a trade union, has taken up the cause of the workmen.

(2.) The dispute that was referred for adjudication to the tribunal was whether the dismissal of a workman named Tulsi, loco driver of the said colliery, was Justified or not. The said workman was dismissed on 30 July 1962 It was stated by the company before the tribunal that a branch union of the Congress Mazdoor Sangh came into existence at Jamadoba Colliery sometime in 1963 after the date of dismissal of the workman, and that the dismissed workman also became a member of the said union thereafter. This statement of fact was, however, strenuously challenged by the petitioners' union, on whose behalf evidence was led to show that the trade union for Jamadoba Colliery was in existence from 1958, and that the dismissed workman bacame a member of that union on 10 June 1962, before his dismissal.

(3.) The learned tribunal, however, after a discussion of the entire evidence, held that, though the Congress Mazdoor Sangh might have existed in other places from before, nevertheless a branch of that trade union came into existence in Jamadoba Colliery only sometime in 1963 after the date of dismissal of the workman, and that he bacame a member of the same thereafter. This, being a pure finding of fact cannot be challenged here.