Apar Industries Ltd. vs Natwarsinh Naharsinh Sindha on 26 September, 2003
8. So far as the second part of that issue is concerned, as we have said above, it was competent for the Tribunal to go into it and decide whether the claim of the workmen that they should not be retrenched was justified. On an examination of the interim award and the final award, we, however, find that the Tribunal in fact did do so. The case reported in Pipraich Sugar Mills Ltd. was also concerned only with the question as to the relief that can be granted to workmen when there is closure of a business. No question arose either before the Court, or in the cases considered by the Court, of an Industrial Tribunal making a direction to the employers to continue to run or to reopen a closed branch of the business. The Labour Appellate Tribunal in the case of Employees of Messrs India Reconstruction Corporation Ltd., Calcutta was dealing with the question of retrenchment compensation as a result of the closure of one of the units of the company concerned, and it held that the workmen were entitled to retrenchment compensation in accordance with law. This Court, in the case of Pipraich Sugar Mills Ltd., only explained why the Labour Appellate Tribunal was justified in granting retrenchment compensation in that case. The opinion expressed by the Court was that, though there is discharge of workmen both when there is retrenchment and closure of business, the compensation is to be awarded under the law not for discharge as such but for discharge on retrenchment and if, as is conceded, retrenchment means in ordinary parlance discharge of the surplus, it cannot include discharge on closure of business. It was in this context that the Court went on to add that in the case of Employees of M/s. India Reconstruction Corporation Ltd., Calcutta what had happened was that one of the units of the Company had been closed which would be a case of retrenchment and not a case of closure of business. It may be noted that, at the time when this decision was given, section 25FF and section 25FFF had not been introduced in the Industrial Disputes Act, and the only right to retrenchment compensation granted to the workmen was conferred by section 25F. It was in the light of the law then prevailing that the Court felt that the decision of the Labour Appellate Tribunal in the case of Employees of M/s. India Reconstruction Corporation Ltd. granting retrenchment compensation. could be justified on the ground that the services of the workmen had not been dispensed with as a result of closure of business, but as a result of retrenchment. That question does not arise in the case before us. Since then, as we have indicated above, s. 25FF and s. 25FFF have been added in the Industrial Disputes Act, and the latter section specifically lays down what rights a workman has when an undertaking is closed down. In a case where a dispute may arise as to whether workmen discharged are entitled to compensation under s. 25F or s. 25FFF it may become necessary to decide whether the closure, as a result of which the services have been dispensed with, amounts to a closure in law or not. In the case before us, it was admitted by learned counsel for both parties that the workmen, who have been discharged as a result of the closure of the 8 depots of the Company, have all been paid retrenchment compensation at the higher rate laid down in s. 25F, so that, in this case, it is not necessary to decide the point raised on behalf of the workmen.