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SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
20th December, 1956.
BHAGWATI, VENKATARAMA AYYAR, B.P. SINHA AND S.K. DAS, JJ.
Punjab National Bank Ltd., Appellant
Versus
Sri Ram Kunwar, Industrial Tribunal, Delhi, and others, Respondents.
Civil Appeal No. 134 of 1955.
Advocates appeared
Mr. Ram Lal Anand, Senior Advocate (Mr. Naunit Lal, Advocate with him), for Appellant; Mr. Y. Kumar, Advocate, for Respondent No. 13.
Held: On a plain reading of S. 11 (7), it is manifest that the expression "costs of any proceeding" means costs of the entire proceeding as determined on its conclusion and not costs in a pending proceeding, nor costs to be incurred in future by It party; and the expression" costs incidental to any proceeding" similarly means costs of interlocutory application, etc., such costs as have been determined thereon, at the conclusion of the hearing. Neither of the two expressions has any reference to costs payable in advance or to be incurred in future by a party; far less do they refer to halting and travelling allowances to be incurred by a party while attending the Court on his own behalf.
No doubt, S. 11 (7) gives a discretion to the Tribunal, and it has full power to determine by and to whom and to what extent and subject to what conditions, if any, the costs are to be paid. It is clear, however, that the discretion is a judicial discretion and must be exercised according to the rules of reason and justice-not by chance or caprice or private opinion or some fanciful idea of benevolence or sympathy. It is a negation of justice and reason to direct one party to pay in advance the costs of the other party irrespective of the final result of the proceeding. The general rule is that costs follow the event unless the Court for good reasons, otherwise orders.
An Industrial Tribunal has, therefore, no power, in the exercise of his discretion under sub-sec. (7) of S. 11 of the Act, to direct the employers to pay the travelling and halting allowances of the representatives of the Unions of the employees in a pending proceeding and irrespective of its final result.
There is no uniform 01 consistent practice in the matter, and even if there is any such practice, it is neither warranted by law nor by the principles of reason and justice.
Judgement
S. K. DAS, J. : The Punjab National Bank Ltd. is the appellant before us. Shorn of all details not necessary for our purpose, the facts are these. By its Order No. LR-100(98) dated September 2, 1953, the Government of India, Ministry of labour, appointed Shri Ram Kanwar, respondent No. 1, as the Industrial Tribunal for the adjudication of a dispute which had arisen between the appellant and its workmen in respect of the following matter.
"Absorption of Bharat Bank employees in the Punjab National Bank Ltd., and their service conditions".
On April 17, 1954, in the course of certain preliminary proceedings before respondent No. 1, an application was made on behalf of the All India Punjab National Bank Employees Federation, in which it was stated that a number of other Unions were involved in the dispute in question, because the appellant had branches all over in India and there were several Unions of its employees at those branches. It was further stated in the application that some of those Unions had submitted their statements when the dispute in question was referred to the Industrial Tribunal, Bombay, with Shri Panchapagesa Shastri as its sole member and Chairman; that Tribunal did not, however, function as Shri Panchapagesa Shastri was appointed a member of the Labour Appellate Tribunal of India. Two substantial prayers were made in the application of April 17, 1954; one was that due publicity of the adjudication proceedings should be given by issuing notices to all those Unions to participate in the proceedings, and the second prayer was that an order should be made directing the appellant to pay travelling and halting allowances to the representatives of the various Unions so as to enable the latter to send their representatives to Delhi, the place where the adjudication proceedings were pending. A list of fourteen Unions and organisations was given along with the application, with the number of representatives which each union or organisation wished to send.
2. In the present appeal we are concerned only with the second prayer made in the aforesaid application, and the order which respondent No. 1 made with regard to that prayer, being the order impugned before us, was in these terms:
"The management objects to the grant of any T. A. or Halting allowances to the representatives of the Unions. It is, no doubt, correct that there it no provision of law on this point in favour of the representatives, but the general practice of various Tribunals has all along been to allow reasonable T.A. and halting allowance to the representatives of the Unions, specially in Bank cases. It is, therefore, ordered that the representatives of the Unions, who put in appearance in the Tribunal from stations outside Delhi, shall be paid 2 1/2 second class railway fares to and from Delhi, plus Rs. 10 per day as halting allowance by the management of the Bank.
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The Bank is also requested to direct its respective branches to pay travelling and halting allowances in advance to the employees who inter to come to Court as representatives".
3. It may be stated here that out of the fourte Unions and organisations which wanted to see their representatives to take part in the adjudication proceedings, two have their offices in Delhi Respondent No. 1 directed the payment of travelling and halting allowances to the representatives of the remaining twelve Unions and organisation and fixed the number of representatives to be sent by each Union or organisation.
4. The plea of the appellant was that the order passed by respondent No. 1 was wholly without jurisdiction and was also unjust, involving as it did an expenditure of not less that Rs. 2,500 for each day of the hearing in the course of the proceedings before respondent No. 1. On that plea the appellant moved the Punjab High Court for the issue of a writ of certiorari or such other writ as might be appropriate, for the purpose of quashin
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