Judgment

WANCHOO, J. : This is an appeal by special leave in an industrial matter. The appellant is the Ahmedabad Miscellaneous Industrial Workers Union, and the dispute which went for adjudication before the Industrial Court Bombay was with respect to bonus for the year ending September 1956. The appellant claimed that three months wages should be awarded as bonus by the respondent, which is the Ahmedabad Electricity Company Limited. The contention of the respondent was that if a calculation was made in accordance with the Full Bench formula evolved by the Labour Appellate Tribunal and approved by this Court in Associated Cement Companies Ltd. v. Workmen Employed, 1959 SCR 925 there would be no available surplus from which any bonus could be awarded. The Industrial Court accepted the contention of the respondent and rejected the appellant s claim. The main dispute in the Industrial Court centred on three points namely-

(i) whether depreciation should be calculated according to the provisions of the Income-ax Act and the rules framed thereunder or in accordance with the provisions contained in the Seventh Schedule to the Electricity (Supply) Act, No. LTV of 1954;

(ii) whether any d