Punjab-Haryana High Court
Shreyans Paper Mills Ltd. vs The Presiding Officer, Labour Court on 8 February, 1995
Equivalent citations: (1995)110PLR128
JUDGMENT G.S. Singhvi, J.
1. Against the award dated 27.9.1993 (annexure- P-8), the employer has filed this writ petition with a prayer to quash the said award and also for issue of a direction to the Labour Court, Patiala, to proceed with the reference made to it by the Government. A prayer has also been made by the petitioner to restrain the respondent No. 3 from proceeding with the demand notice annexure P-9.
2. We have heard Mr. Goyal appearing for the petitioner and perused the record. In our opinion, the petition filed by the petitioner deserves to be dismissed for the following reasons.
(i) The writ petition has been filed after a delay of one year and over three months of the passing of the award annexure P-8 and there is not tangible explanation for this delay on the part of the petitioner. In the facts of this case, we are of the considered opinion that this long delay is fatal to the entertainability of the petition.
(ii) In so far as the prayer for issue of prohibition against respondent No. 3 from proceeding with the demand notice annexure P-9 is concerned, we are of the view that the petition is wholly misconceived. There is no provision of law which prohibits an employee from raising a demand and which prohibits the competent authority under the Industrial Disputes Act from entertaining a demand raised by the workman. Whether a demand can be raised by the employee or not is one thing and whether there is merit in the demand or not, is altogether a different thing. In the absence of any statutory prohibition against the Assistant Labour Commissioner (respondent No. 3) from entertaining the demand notice, there is hardly any justification for this Court to intervene and to prevent respondent No. 3 from exercising his statutory power.
(iii) In so far as award annexure P-8 is concerned, the Labour Court has simply accepted the request made by the representative of the workman that on account of technical error in the reference, he does not want to press the reference and reserves his right to file a fresh dispute after rectifying the error. The argument of Mr. Goyal is that the Labour Court/Industrial Tribunal constituted under the Act of 1947 does not have the jurisdiction to pass such an order. Mr. Goyal made reference to the provisions of Sections 10 and 11 of the 1947 Act to argue that the adjudicating bodies constituted under the Act of 1947 have got limited jurisdiction. The learned counsel laid emphasis on Sections 10(8) and 11(3) to argue that the Labour Court does not have the power to allow the request made by the representative of the workman not to press the reference on account of any technical defect or deficiency and permit the workman to raise a fresh dispute. In our opinion, this argument is also without substance. Apart from the fact that the adjudicating bodies constituted under the Act of 1947 are not bound by the technicalities of procedures which are applicable to the proceeding of the Civil Courts, a look at section 11(1) clearly shows that wide powers vest with the adjudicating bodies to follow such procedure as that body thinks fit. Section 11(3) only gives additional power to the Labour Court/Industrial Tribunal to enforce the attendance of the witnesses etc. in accordance with the provisions of C.P.C. Provisions of Section 11(3) cannot, in any manner, be read as a fetter on the exercise of power by such adjudicating bodies in the interest of justice.
3. The Apex Court has time and again held that technical rules of procedure as contained in the C.P.C. and technical rules of evidence as contained in the Evidence Act, 1872 are not applicable to he proceedings under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. Therefore, we do not find any justification to interfere with annexure P-8.
4. In our opinion, there is no substance in the petition which deserves to the dismissed and the same is hereby dismissed.