SINGH R N Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners herein claim to be office bearers of Indian Cable Workers' Union; Golmuri, Jamshedpur. Petitioner No. 1 claims to be the President while Petitioner No.2 claims to be the General Secretary of the said Workers' Union. They have impugned the orders passed by Respondent No.3 dated May 7, 1984 and April 9, 1986. Annexure-12 is the order dated May 7, 1984 whereby the Joint Labour Commissioner has referred the internal disputes of the Union for adjudication by the Independent Board, South Binar Sub-Committee (Respondent No .4 herein). By order dated April 9, 1986 (An-ncxurc-13) the Joint Labour Commissioner-cum-Registrar, Trade Unions has communicated the decision of the Independent Board, which decided to call for the list of members from the rival Unions and directed holding of election under the supervision of the Registrar, Trade Unions. Accordingly, the Unions have been directed to submit the list of members giving relevant particulars.

(2.) The case of the petitioners is that there is an Indian Cable Workers Union which is a registered Union of workers. Pursuant to a notice issued by the General Secretary a meeting of the Executive Committee was convened on January 17,1981 under the Presidentship of Sri Majumdar, the then Vice President of the Union and certain decisions were taken in that meeting. On January 19, 1981 thirty Executive Members of the Union wrote to the General Secretary intimating him about the no-confidence motion which they wished to bring against the President and the Treasurer of the Union, and requested the General Secretary to take necessary steps in this regard. The General Secretary of the Union, accordingly, issued notice to the Executive Members of the Union intimating that a meeting of the Executive Committee shall be held on January 31,1981. Included in the agenda of the meeting was the no-confidence motion sponsored by some of the members. Accordingly, the meeting was held on January 31, 1981 and the no-confidence motion against the President and the; Treasurer was passed.. The said meeting was presided over by Sri Umesh, a Vice President of the Union. Thereafter a notice was issued by the General Secretary convening a special general body meeting for ratifying the decision of the Executive Committee dated January 31, 1981. At the said general body meeting held on February 28, 1981, attended by about 900 members, title decision of the Executive Committee dated January 31,1981 was approved. The case of the petitioners is that thereafter several tripartite agreements were entered into and there was complete industrial peace. According to them, the Management recognised the Union of which the petitioners are the office bearers. It appears that a suit was filed in the Court of Munsif at Jamshedpur being Title SuitNo.218 of 1981 purported to have been filed on behalf of Indian Cable Workers' Union for a declaration that one Sri N.B. Majumdar is the General Secretary of Indian Cable Workers' Union, and defendant Nos.3 and 4 named in the plaint were not the General Secretary of the said Union. A prayer was made for restraining the management from negotiating with the aforesaid defendant Nos.3 and 4 in the suit. Later, on April 21, 1981 Sri N.B. Majumdar, purporting to be the General Secretary, filed a petition under Order XXXIX, Rules 1 and 2 and Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure for grant of temporary injunction restraining the management, defendant Nos. 1 and 2 from negotiating matters with defendants 3 and 4 acting as office bearers of the Workers' Union. It was pleaded that there was an election held from October 14 to 16,1977 in which Ramanand Choudhary was elected as President and Rama Shankar Dubey (Defendant No.3) waselected as Secretary. DefendantNo.4, Amarnath Jha was elected as Assistant Secretary. In the same election other office bearers were also elected who were holding office. Recently defendant Nos.3 and 4, the General Secretary and Assistant Secretary respectively indulged in anti Union activities and, therefore, the Executive Committee passed a resolution of no-confidence against them in the meeting held on January 30, 1981, which was subsequently approved by the general body. Defendant Nos . 3 and 4 were, therefore, debarred from acting as General Secretary and Assistant Secretary. It was alleged that the aforesaid defendants had no right to sit with the Management to negotiate Union matters, and if they continue to do so, the plaintiff will suffer irreparable injury. The application for grant of temporary injunction was rejected on the ground that the plaintiff had no prima facie case. The order of the Court is An-nexure-10 to the writ petition. It also appears from Annexure-11, the order of the Munsif dated March 9, 1984, that the title suit was ultimately dismissed for default. The impugned orders, Annexures 12 and 13, have been issued thereafter on May 7, 1984 and April 9,1986.

(3.) It also appears from the letter dated June 13, 1986 (Annexure- 14) sent by Ramanand Singh (Petitioner No.1) as President of the Workers' Union objecting to the holding of election under the supervision of Registrar, Trade Unions, on the ground that there was no legal sanction for holding of such election under the direction of the Independent Board. Since the official respondents did not respond favourably to the petition of Petitioner No. 1 and on June 30, 1986 proceeded to finalise the voters list, this writ petition was filed on July 15,1986 impugning the two orders (Annexures 12 and 13)