Municipal Corporation Of Delhi vs Ganesh Razak & Anr. on 26 November, 1993
5. In my opinion, the impugned judgment and order of the Labour Court cannot be sustained. The Labour Court has misunderstood the scope and jurisdiction under Section 33-C(2) of the Act to be extremely narrow, without any scope for deciding the issue such as whether the applicants are or are not the workmen or the employer is or is not an industry. All such questions or issues or contentions raised by the other side have to be decided by the Labour Court at the threshold and such applications cannot be dismissed merely at the whisper of the employer that the applicants are not the workmen or that the employer is not an industry. The Labour Court must decide the issue as to on what basis, the applicants could be held to be workmen or under what circumstances the employer cannot be termed as industry to be covered by the provisions of the I.D. Act. If finally, the Labour Court comes to the conclusion that the applicants do not fall within the definition of the workman or the employer is not an industry as defined under Section 2(j) of the Act, in that case, the Labour Court can take appropriate decision to proceed further with the application or to reject the application if both or either of the points are decided against the applicants. In the present case, the Labour Court has adopted a curious approach and has accepted
the contention of the respondent society that the application was not maintainable and that the Labour Court has no jurisdiction because the respondent was not an industry. The Labour Court ought to have further probed into the matter to find out why the respondent society could not be called an industry in accordance with law. If the Labour Court had decided that question that the respondent society was not an industry on the basis of its activities and, thereafter, the Labour Court was justified in rejecting the application. But the Labour Court could not deny itself the jurisdiction which is legitimately vested under the provisions to determine and compute the money due from the employer. There is no doubt about the scope and parameters of the aforesaid provisions which is known as executing jurisdiction. The applicant has to establish that he has an existing right to invoke the said jurisdiction to claim money due from the employer. In the present case, the applicants have claimed difference in the wages actually paid and which they are alleging that they are entitled to get under the Minimum Wages Act. The aforesaid and all other claims are made on the basis of the averments made by the applicants that they have an existing right. Whether they have or they do not have the existing right will have to be gone into by the Labour Court on the basis of evidence and material adduced by both the parties. The applicants, however, could not be thrown on the threshold merely because the respondents raised a plea that it was not an industry. The Labour Court ought to have further decided it as an incidental question whether the respondent society was an industry or was not an industry.