Judgment

GROVER, J.: This is an appeal by special leave against the award of the Special Industrial Tribunal, Orissa, in which the principal question which has to be determine is whether there was a closure of its undertaking by the appellant Company pursuant to a notice issued on October 3, 1967, to its workmen on account of the Gherao, if it is permissible to use that expression, of the staff and Officers of the Company in its Administrative Office building from about 2 P. M., of October 1, 1967 till 5 A. M. of the morning of October 2, 1967, and if it was not a closure whether there was a refusal by the management of the Company to employ its workmen amounting to a lock out.

2. The material facts may be succinctly stated. The appellant is a public Company having its registered office at Choudwar in the district of Cuttack. It maintains some branch offices at Calcutta and Madras. It carried on the business primarily of manufacturing and selling iron pipes and poles and has been employing a large number of workmen, their number being 922 on the relevant date. According to findings of the Tribunal, which have not been questioned it is a prosperous concern an between the years 1959 an