Judgement

WANCHOO, J.:- This appeal by special leave arises out of an industrial dispute between the Birla Cotton Spinning and Weaving Mills Limited (hereinafter called the Appellant) and its workmen. A large number of matters were referred for adjudication to the industrial tribunal but in the present appeal we are concerned with two, namely, (i) whether the wages require to be increased and standardised, and what directions are necessary in this respect, and (ii) whether any of the workmen doing the work of fancy jobbers should be designated and paid accordingly. The first point has however been confined to mistries and line jobbers only as the other operatives were covered by another award in another reference (No. ID 52 of 1957) between the same parties, which was decided earlier by this tribunal. That award came in appeal to this Court and the decision of this Court is reported in Management of Birla Cotton Spinning and Weaving Mills Ltd. v. Its Workmen, AIR 1961 SC 1179. This Court had set aside the earlier award and sent the case back to the tribunal to proceed in the manner indicated in that judgment. We are told that that matter has ended in a compromise between the parties. The claim of the workmen concerned in the present reference (namely, mistries and line-jobbers) was that their wages were low and not standardised and in spite of representations made to the appellant, nothing had been done in the matter. The workmen therefore claimed that the wages should be increased and standardised and incremental pay scales should be introduced so far as mistries and line jobbers were concerned. As to fancy jobbers, the workmen s claim was that they had been wrongly designated recently as assistant fancy jobbers, though they were doing the job of fancy jobbers. It was therefore contended that they should be designated as fancy jobbers and their pay also increased and standardised accordingly.

2. The appellant resisted the claim on : number of grounds. It was contended firstly that there was an earlier award in 1951 made by Shri Dulat, which was still in force and therefore the reference was incompetent. Next it was contended that there was no comparison between the Swatantra Bharat Mills and the Delhi Cloth Mills on the one hand and the appellant-mills on the other and therefore the wages prevalent in those mills could not be taken as a standard for fixing wages for the appellant s workmen. Thirdly, it was urged that incremental scales were provided nowhere in the textile industry and therefore this claim should be rejected. Fourthly, the workmen designated as assistant fancy jobbers had been so designated rightly and could not claim to be fancy jobbers. And lastly, it was urged that there was no case for applying the Bombay standardisation scheme to the appellant s workmen for conditions in Bombay and Delhi were in many respects different.

3. The tribunal rejected the contention that the Dulat award of 1951 had not been terminated and therefore the present reference was incompetent. The tribunal further held that though there were differences between the Swatantra Bharat Mills and the Delhi Cloth Mills on the one hand and the appellant on the other, both in the matter of the working of the mills and in the matter of their financial position, they were not of importance as there were bound to be differences between unit and unit of the same industry and thus the wages paid in those two mills were comparable. As to the claim for incremental scale of wages, the tribunal held that no incremental scale had been provided in any standardisation scheme relating to textile industry and rejected this claim. It further held that the workmen now designated as assistant fancy jobbers were really fancy jobbers and had been previously designated as such. Recently, however, they started to be called assistant fancy jobbers and therefore it was ordered that they should be designated as fancy jobbers. And lastly, the tribunal following its earli