Judgment

SHELAT, J.:- In these appeal, by special leave, two questions arise: (1) whether standing orders govern the employees appointed before they were certified under the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 20 of 1946 and (2) whether the appellant-company was entitled to terminate the service of a workman appointed as a probationer before the expiry of the period of probation except on the ground of misconduct.

2. The first question relates to 3 workmen, Alladin, Ram Prasad and Noorul Zaman who were employed in 1929, 1935 and 1937 respectively, long before the company s standing orders were certified and brought into force in 1951 and who were superannuated under standing order 32 of the said standing orders. Prior to 1951 there were no rules or conditions of service prescribing the age of superannuation. Standing order 32 for the first time laid down 55 years as the age of superannuation. Relying on standing order 32 the company served on the three workmen notices dated December 19, 1964, November 20, 1963 and January 27, 1964, who had by then attained the age of 58, 64 and 59 years, by which the company retired them with effect from January 1, 1965, December 20, 1963 and March 1, 1964 respectively. The Labour Court, to which the dispute arising from the compulsory retirement was referred, held that the company s standing orders having been certified long after these workmen were employed and the conditions of their employment not having provided any age of retirement, the company could not apply standing order 32 to them, and therefore, the orders of superannuation were bad, and directed their reinstatement and payment to them of their wages from the date of retirement till the date when they would be reinstated.

3. Thus, the question involved in this appeal is whether the company could retire by applying standing O. 32 to these three workmen, who admittedly had long passed the age of superannuation provided thereunder. Counsel for the company argued that once the standing orders are certified and come into operation, they would, subject to their modification as provided under the Act, bind all workmen, irrespective of whether they were employed before or after they came into force, and that therefore, the Labour Court was in error in holding to the contrary and ordering their reinstatement. Mr. Kumarmangalam, on the other hand, argued (1) that the company s action amounted to applying standing order 32 retrospectively, that that was not warranted, for, if the standing orders were intended to be so applied, they would have so expressly provided, and (2) that in a previous reference, being Ref. 91 of 1964, between the appellant-company and its workmen, this very Labour Court had decided that these standing orders did not apply to workmen previously employed, that an appeal was sought to be filed in this Court against that order but no special leave was granted, and therefore, that order became final. Consequently, the company was not entitled to reagitate the same question, as it was precluded from doing so by principles analogous to the principle of res judicata.

4. The question as to whether standing orders were retrospective in their application can obviously arise only if they do not in law bind workmen previously employed. Such a question can hardly arise if the provisions of the Act show, as contended by counsel for the company, that once they are certified and come into force, they bind both the employer and all the workmen presently employed.

5. As observed in Shahdara (Delhi) Saharanpur Light Railway Company Ltd. v. Shahdara Saharanpur Railway Worker s Union, 1969-1 Lab LJ 734 the Act is a beneficent piece of legislation, its object being to require, as its preamble and its long title lay down, employers in industrial establishments to define with sufficient precision the conditions of employment of workmen employed under them and to make them known to such workmen. Before the passing of the Act, there was