SHAMNUGGER JUTE FACTORY CO LTD Vs. SMMODAK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a judgment of the High Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal. The appellant (petitioner) is a limited company incorporated under the Scottish Companies Act and having its registered office in Dundee, Scotland, and carrying on business, inter alia, in Calcutta within the Ordinary Civil Jurisdiction of the Calcutta High Court. The appellant employed at its mill about 4844 workmen. On February 9, 1948, the petitioner employed one Kishan Deo, but his services were terminated on March 23, 1948. There appeared to have been trouble in respect of the discontinuance in service of this employee, and apprehending a breach of the peace, the petitioners put up a notice closing the mill. The mill was re-opened after a few days, but the workmen did not return to work because Kishan Deo and two other workmen were not offered re-employment. The Government of West Bengal, acting under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, referred for adjudication by the Industrial Tribunal the dispute which had arisen between the management of the petitioner company and their workmen. The Tribunal consisted of three members who are grouped as first respondents to this appeal. The Tribunal, in spite of the protest of the appellant, having intimated that they will proceed with the adjudication, the petitioners filed a petition in the High Court asking for writs of certiorari and prohibition and an order, in effect, under Section 45 of the Specific Relief Act, claiming that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to determine the question of payment of wages during the lock-out period as an industrial dispute.

(2.) On the question of jurisdiction of the Court to issue the writs of certiorari and prohibition, the position is the same as in the appeal of the Indian Paper Pulp Company, Ltd. (1949) 52 Bom. L.R. 176, f.c.

(3.) The main dispute related to the lock-out and the claim of the workmen to payment of wages during the period of the alleged lock-out. It seems to us clear that the question whether the employers were justified in locking out their workmen would be an industrial dispute covered by the words. dispute which is connected with the employment or non-employment and with the terms of employment of such workmen. The payment of wages during the period of such lock-out would also be clearly an industrial dispute.