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4. The petitioners were called upon to correct. The notice and the statement of the case for conciliation, and the necessary corrections were made by making change in respect of pay-scales on 11 October, 1962. According to the practice so far prevalent, the Deputy Commissioner of Labour thereafter sent the notice in form O with the statement of the case to the Labour Commissioner whose office is at Bombay. Notice was despatched to that officer on 24 October 1962.

5. The labour Commissioner appointed one Sri Badiuddin as a conciliator on 10 November 1962. The conciliator commenced proceedings by issuing notices to the parties to appear before him. By the first notice the parties were directed to appear on 16 November, 1962, but in the meanwhile a fresh date was fixed to appear on 22 November 1962 by a notice sent on 13 November 1962. On 22 November 1962, the conciliator was absent and by mutual consent the time was further extended between the parties. The conciliation proceedings went on before the conciliator till 11 January 1963, on which date, it appears, conciliation was not possible and the conciliation was closed.

19. It is, however, contended on behalf of the contesting respondent that presentation of the statement of the case along with the notice in form O to the Deputy Commissioner of Labour must be taken as presentation to the Commissioner of Labour. There are no rules or any provision of law under which the Deputy Commissioner of Labour was authorized to receive notice in form O or statement of the case. If, however, he received it according to the practice as suggested, then he must be taken to have acted on behalf of the Commissioner of Labour and in that view of the matter, the argument runs, proceedings should be deemed to have commenced under S. 37(1) of the Act either on 19 September, 1962, when the unamended or incorrect statement of the case was received, or at any rate, on 11 October, 1962, when the statement of the case was corrected. We do not think it is possible to accept this contention. Under S. 37(1) a formal date of commencement of conciliation proceedings is provided for by the legislature and that date is the date on which the statement of the case is received by the Labour Commissioner. Labour Commissioner does not include Deputy Commissioner of Labour or, for the matter of that, Assistant Commissioner of Labour. It is an admitted position that there are no rules under which the powers of receiving a statement of the case under S. 37(1) have been delegated by the Commissioner either to the Deputy Commissioner of Labour or Assistant Commissioner of Labour. Until, therefore, the statement of the case actually reaches the Commissioner of Labour, the fiction that is introduced in S. 37(1) as to the date of commencement of conciliation cannot come into force and cannot be deemed to have come into force by another fiction namely, receipt of the statement of the case by the Deputy Commissioner of Labour or Assistant Commissioner of Labour should be deemed to be receipt of the statement of the case by the Commissioner of Labour. At the most, what happens in such a case is that the Deputy Commissioner of Labour or the Assistant Commissioner of Labour lends his good offices for receiving the application which many times may contain irrelevant or unnecessary matter or material and serve as a scrutinizing authority before the statement of the case in the proper form containing only such matters as or reasonably capable of being the subject-matter of conciliation, or forwarded and received by the Commissioner of Labour. The mere fact that the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Labour, Nagpur, lends its services to commence conciliation proceedings cannot alter the fact that so far as the fictional date of commencement of conciliation is concerned, it must be determined with reference to the date of actual receipt of the statement of the case by the Labour Commissioner at Bombay and not by any other officer. It must, therefore, be held that in the instant case the conciliation cannot be deemed to have commenced within the meaning of S. 37(1) of the Act until the statement of the case was received by the Labour Commissioner at Bombay and that date is certainly not earlier than 24 October, 1962.

28. In this connexion the learned counsel for the petitioners has invited our attention to a few decisions which lay down the principle on which the provisions of Sub-section (7) of S. 37 regarding fixation of time or period of limitation, cast a duty on a public officer, is to be interpreted with reference to the rights of parties. In Andheri-Marol-Kurla Bus Service and another v. State of Bombay [1959 - II L.L.J. 236], interpretation of S. 12(6) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (Central), came in for consideration. Section 12 of the Act prescribes the duties of officers and under Sub-section (6) a conciliation officer is required to make a report under this section within fourteen days of the commencement of the conciliation proceedings, or even within shorter time if a shorter time is fixed by the appropriate Government. Under S. 33 of the same Act no employer can, in regard to any matter connected with the dispute, alter to the prejudice of the workmen concerned in such dispute the conditions of work during the pendency of any proceeding before the conciliation officer. The question that arose in the case was whether a conciliation proceeding could be said to be pending when the conciliator did not submit a report within the period of fourteen days of the commencement of the conciliation proceedings so as to give immunity to an employer who altered the conditions of service of workmen after the period of fourteen days. Their lordships held in p. 238 that there was no doubt that S. 12 contemplates that the report should be made and the proceedings closed within a fortnight, and if proceedings are not closed but are carried on or if the conciliation officer does not make his report within fourteen days he may be guilty of a breach of duty, but in law the proceedings do not automatically come to an end but only terminate under S. 20(2)(b) of the Act which applied to all proceedings. This appeal arose out of a decision in this Court in State v. Andheri-Marol, etc., Bus Service [1955 - I L.L.J. 378] and in considering the effect of the provisions of S. 12(6) of the Industrial Disputes Act which uses a peremptory words viz., "shall" requiring the officer to submit his report within fourteen days. The Division Bench has observed as follows in p. 384.

30. In applying this test the Division Bench further observed as follows :

"Now, if we consider the scope of the statute and the object which it has in view, there can be little difficulty in coming to the conclusion that the arguments based on the object and scope of the statute are in favour of the construction for which the learned Government Pleader contends. If S. 12(6) is construed in the manner which appeared to the learned Chief Presidency Magistrate to be reasonable, it would lead to this unfortunate result that in a very large majority of cases, conciliation efforts are bound to fail. I have already indicated that unless the nature of the industrial dispute admits of a very easy and quick solution, in a large majority of such disputes it would be necessary for the conciliation officer to prepare the ground for mutual settlement by collecting necessary data and statistics, by arguing with the parties one against the other, and by inducing them ultimately to agree to certain terms by consent. However quick the conciliation officer may be and however responsive both the parties to the dispute may be, it seems very unlikely that within the statutory period of fourteen days, many industrial disputes can be settled. If that is so, then the construction which makes the conciliation officer's work almost impossible should, we think, be avoided if it can be reasonable so done."