BAL HIT SHIKSHA SAMITI Vs. DHARAM SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) AN application under Section 17B of the Industrial Disputes Act 1947 has been filed by the workman, respondent No. 1 with the prayer that the same may be allowed and the petitioner employer be directed to make the payment of salary last drawn by him during the pendency of the writ petition.

(2.) THE petitioner -employer has contested the aforesaid application by filing a reply to it. The primary objections raised by the petitioner is that the instant application has been moved after a lapse of about 8 years from the filing of the writ petition and therefore on the ground of delay and latches the application is liable to be dismissed. Learned Counsel for the petitioner has also submitted that the writ petition, in which the present application has been filed, was admitted by the Court on 18.1.2001 and a stay order in the term that meanwhile operation of the award dated 9.5.2000, passed by the Labour Court, Bharatpur, by stayed. He has submitted that later, on 20.7.2001 the Court had ordered that the stay order granted on 18.1.2001 is made absolute till the decision of the main matter. Accordingly, the stay application was disposed of. On the said premise, the learned Counsel for the petitioner submitted that apart from the delay in filing the application by the workman under Section 17B of the Industrial Dispute Act, 1947, the stay order granted by this Court had also been confirmed, whereby the operation of the award impugned has been stayed till the disposal of the writ petition.

(3.) ON the other hand, the learned Counsel for the respondent -workman has submitted that the delay in filing application under Section 17B does not dis -entitle a workman from claiming the benefit under the Industrial Disputes Act. In support of his submissions he placed reliance upon the case of RSRTC v. Labour Court, Bikaner : (1998) ILLJ 831.