Judgment

WANCHOO, J. : This is an appeal by special leave in an industrial matter. The appellant is a steamer company with its head office at Calcutta. There was a dispute between the appellant and its workmen, which was referred to the Sixth Industrial Tribunal, West Bengal. Out of the matters in dispute before the tribunal, there are only two which survive in the present appeal, namely, (i) dearness allowance for steamer and flat clerks and (ii) working hours for ghat employees on Saturdays.

Re. (i).

2. The pay scales of the flat and steamer clerks and the dearness allowance payable to them have been matters of adjudication in previous awards between the company and its workmen. The first of these disputes was in 1948 and in the award following that dispute these clerks were put in grade E . Then there was another dispute in 1953, in which a claim for revision was rejected. Eventually by settlements between the company and its workmen, the scale of these clerks was raised to Rs. 60-3-102. That scale has been upheld by the present tribunal which refused any further change in it. At the time of the present dispute these clerks were getting a minimum of Rs. 35 as dearness allowance. Their case was that the company was paying what is known as the Bengal Chamber of Commerce rate of dearness allowance to all its staff in the head office and at the Calcutta ghats. The flat and steamer clerks also claimed that they should be paid the same rate of dearness allowance, which is very much higher. The tribunal after considering the circumstances has awarded the Bengal Chamber of Commerce rate of dearness allowance to these clerks also from September 1957.

3. The company contends that the tribunal was patently wrong in allowing this rate of dearness allowance to these clerks, as, at any rate, it is not meant for workmen living outside Greater Calcutta. It is also urged that on principle, dearness allowance should be allowed at the rate prevalent in the locality, where a workman is posted and as these workmen are not posted in Greater Calcutta they should not have been awarded this rate of dearness allowance.

4. The tribunal s reason for allowing this rate of dearness allowance to these clerks was that they were directly under the control of the head office and ought to be treated as belonging to the head office. The tribunal was further of the opinion that dearness allowance was a method to neutralise the high cost of living and as the members of the family of these workmen must be living in Calcutta they should get the same rate as other employees of the company living in Calcutta.

5. So far as the principle is concerned there is no doubt that dearness allowance depends upon the place of posting of an employee. The difficulty, however, of applying this principle in the case of these clerks is that they have no definite place of posting; they are flat and steamer clerks and their main duty is to work on flats and steamers while they are plying on the river. In such a case the principle that dearness allowance should be governed by the place of posting can only mean that the employees should get dearness allowance where their families (i.e. wife and children) are residing, for that would be the place of posting of such employees for all practical purposes. The tribunal s view therefore that these clerks should be paid this rate of dearness allowance would be justified on the presumption made by it that the families of these clerks must necessarily be living in Calcutta when they were on duty on a flat or steamer. There is, however, no proof of this on the record and it cannot necessarily be assumed that every such clerk must be keeping his family in Greater Calcutta. As we have pointed out above, this rate of dearness allowance is not meant to apply to those who reside outside Greater Calcutta. Though therefore the tribunal is right in awarding this rate of dearness allowance to these clerks, it went wrong in assuming that every one of these cl