The Court held that the Tribunal was justified in granting the increase in scales of pay and dearness allowance, considering the financial condition of the company, the scales prevalent in other comparable concerns, and the increase in prices. The Court also held that the adjustment in the scales of pay taking into account the length of service of the workmen was justified.

Judgement

MITTER, J. : This is an appeal by special leave from the award of the Industrial Tribunal, Dhanbad, dated April 25, 1964. No less than 13 issues were referred to the Tribunal under S. 10 (1) (d) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 for adjudication. Before this Court, however, the company which has come up in appeal limited its grievance against the award on only a very few of them. These are:-

1. Scales of pay,

2. Dearness allowance,

3. Adjustment in the scales,

4. Privilege and sick, leave, and

5. Gratuity

2. In order to appreciate the proper scope of the dispute between the parties and the extent to which amelioration of the conditions of service of the workmen with regard to the matter mentioned above was justified, it is necessary to refer, in brief, to the past history of the company and its prospects as they have come to light before us. This is all the more necessary because the learned counsel for the appellant made very strong comment on the Tribunal having fixed the scales of pay, the dearness allowance, etc., at considerably higher figures than those prevalent without estimating the impact thereof on the finances of the company. The Tribunal, as a matter of fact, expressly mentioned in its award that it had before it no estimates as to the burden which the award would bring about in the finances of the company. The Tribunal had before it the balance sheets and the profit and loss accounts of the company from the year 1958 to the year 1962. In order to be able to determine whether the company was in a position to bear the additional burden, we requested counsel for the parties to produce before us the balance sheets and the profit and loss accounts of the company for the subsequent years, and these were made available to us. We thus had an opportunity of judging the financial condition of the company for the subsequent years, 1963, 1964 and 1965 to find out for ourselves whether the burden was such that the company could bear if we were of the view that the increase in the scales of pay and the dearness allowance awarded by the Tribunal were not unreasonable. Mr. Sen, learned counsel for the appellant, stated more than once and even in the early stages of the opening of the appeal that his client did not intend to take exception to the increase in the scales of pay and the dearness allowance but the real grievance of the company was regarding the adjustment or fitment of the workmen in the new scales of pay and dearness allowance which, according to him, would greatly increase the burden of the company. Mr. Sen further argued that in all such awards it was usual to fit the workers in the new scales of pay and dearness allowance giving them one or two lifts in the new scale; but, what the Tribunal had done in this case was to fit the workmen in the new scales on the basis of the total length of their service with the company. The argument put in this form certainly suggests that the Tribunal had transgressed the usual limits of such increases and we, therefore, have to find not whether there are any exceptional circumstances in this case which justify the Tribunal in granting the increase it did and whether the finances of the company warrant such increases.

3. There is no doubt that the appellant is one of the smallest units of the insurance companies undertaking fire, marine and miscellaneous insurance work in India. This is borne out by the Indian Insurance Books for the years 1963 and 1964 to which our attention was dawn by learned counsel. The company was founded in the year 1923 and was doing exclusively life insurance business until 1948. Thereafter it started general insurance business on a very small scale. After the passing of the Life Insurance Corporation Act of 1956 and the taking over of the life insurance business of the company by the Corporation, its activities were very much reduced. The, paid-up capital of the company was only Rs. 6,54,190. At the end of the year 1961 it was left with a loss of