RAJASTHAN STATE ROAD TRANSPORT CORPORATION PARIVAHAN MARG JAIPUR Vs. JUDGE INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNAL RAJASTHAN JAIPUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS writ petition is directed against the award, dated, March 23, 1983, by the Industrial Tribunal, Jaipur, declaring that the' retrenchment of 138 workmen of the Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation (hereinafter called the Corporation) by the Corporation is illegal and invalid and directing the General Manager of the Corporation to reinstate all of them in service with back wages.

(2.) THE facts, material for our purpose, may be shortly stated here. THE Corporation was established and constituted under the Rajasthan Road Transport Corporation Act, 1950, for the purpose of providing adequate and efficient transport services in the State of Rajasthan. In order to provide some amenities to the travelling public, the Corporation found it necessary to construct passenger sheds, bus stands and other buildings. To start with, the Corporation sanctioned the posts of one over-seer, two draft men, two mistries, one upper division clerk and one lower division typist. In due course, as the work expanded, the Corporation borrowed the services of some officers of the rank of Executive Engineer and Assistant Engineer from the State Government to serve with it on deputation. Some workmen were appointed on "work-charged" basis. THEy were employed on regular basis in 1978, when, it is said, the building activity, and the work of repairs and maintenance had touched the peak.

(3.) THE order of reference implies that, during the course of conciliation proceedings the workmen did not question the fact that they had been retrenched by the General Manager and that he had the requisite power and authority to do so. In any case, the Tribunal gets its jurisdiction to adjudicate upon the point or points of dispute referred to it, and in that sense, the parameters of its jurisdiction are defined in the order of reference and it must confine itself within those parameters. THE Tribunal is not free to enlarge the scope of the France by reading into it matters which are not incidental to the point or points referred. In Delhi Cloth and General Mills Co. Ltd. V. THEir Workmen (3) the Supreme Court explained the meaning of the words "matters incidental there to" occurring in section 10 (4) of the Act, stating that the dispute referred is the fundamental thing and matters incidental thereto are adjunct to it and that "something incidental therefore cannot cut at the root of the main thing to which it is an adjunct" Now, if the Tribunal were to be allowed to engage itself in the enquiry as to whether the Works Manager, had retrenched the workmen concerned and if so whether he was competent to do so, this would not be an enquiry and adjudication as to matters incidental to the dispute as referred, but it would clearly amount to cutting at the very root of the order of reference which, on the face of it, proceeds on the footing that the order of retrenchment had been made by the General Manager.