Judgment

S. K. Das, J. : These are seven appeals on behalf of different Banks working in this country, some incorporated in India and some outside India. It is necessary that we should very briefly state the background of the industrial dispute which has given rise to these appeals. It is now well-known that there was a sharp rise in the prices of commodities during and after World War No. II. This rise in prices very seriously affected salaried employees belonging to the middle class including such employees in the banking industry. In or about the year1946 trade unions of bank employees presented demands for higher salaries and allowances and better conditions of service. In some cases notices of threatened strike were also served on the employers. The unrest became particularly acute in the provinces of Bombay, the United Provinces, and Bengal as they were then known. The local Governments of those provinces referred these industrial disputes for adjudication; this resulted in some regional awards which came to be known in Bombay as the Divatia Award, in the United Provinces as the B. B., Singh Award and in Bengal as the Gupta, Chakravary and Sen Awards. Notwithstanding these awards, the general unrest amongst Bank employees continued and there was a clamour for control of the banking industry by the Central Government. On 30-4-1949, was passed the Industrial Disputes (Banking and Insurance Companies) Ordinance (Ordinance VI of 1949) under the provisions of which all banking companies having branches or other establishments in more than one province came under the jurisdiction of the Central Government for the purposes of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (XIV of 1947). By a notification dated 13-6-1949, the Central Government constituted an ad hoc Tribunal consisting of Shri K. C. Sen, a retired Judge of the Bombay High Court, as Chairman with two other persons as members to adjudicate upon an industrial dispute between several banking companies and their workmen. On the same day, the industrial dispute was referred to the Tribunal by a separate order. The dispute covered several items, and some more were added from time to time. For the sake of convenience, we shall hereafter refer to this Tribunal as the Sen Tribunal and its award as the Sen Award. After a very exhaustive enquiry, the Sen Tribunal made its award which was published on 12-8-1950. Some of the leading Banks being dissatisfied with the award applied to the SC and obtained special leave to appeal against the said award, as it had been specially exempted from the jurisdiction of the Labour Appellate Tribunal constituted under the Industrial Disputes (Appellate Tribunal) Act,1950 (XLVIII of 1950). This Court ultimately held that the award of the Sen Tribunal was void in toto for want of jurisdiction, but did not go into the merits of the award with regard to any of the matters dealt with therein. The consequence of this decision was that the dispute in the banking industry remained unresolved. Soon after there were some strikes consequent on certain action taken by some of the Banks. The result was that the Central Government had to take steps afresh to settle this long standing dispute. Attempts were at first made through the machinery of conciliation to settled the dispute, but these attempts failed. On 26-6-1951, was enacted the Industrial Disputes (Amendment and Temporary Provisions) Act, 1951 (XL of 1951) which had the effect of temporarily, freezing some of the gains of labour under the Sen Award. In July 1951 the Central Government made a fresh reference to an Industrial Tribunal consisting of Shri H. V. Divatia, a retired Judge as Chairman and two other members, but the Chairman and the members resigned within a short time. On 5-1-1952, two notifications were made. By one notification a new Tribunal was constituted to be called the All India Industrial Tribunal (Bank Disputes). The Chairman of this Tribunal was Shri Panchapagesa Sastry, another retired