Judgment

UNTWALIA, J. :- By these four Writ Petitions the employers challenge the constitutional validity of Ss. 25-O and 25-R of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (hereinafter to be referred to as the Act). The facts of the different cases are of a similar nature. It is not necessary to state them in any detail for the purposes of deciding the constitutional question. We may, however, just refer to a few in order to indicate the nature of the dispute between the parties.

Writ Petition No. 644 of 1977

2. The petitioner in this case is Excel Wear, a registered partnership firm, the partners of which are citizens of India. The petitioner has a factory at Bombay where it manufactures garments for exports. About 400 workmen were employed in the petitioners factory. According to its case the relation between the petitioner management and its employees started deteriorating from the year 1974 and had become very much worse from 1976. From Aug. 1976 the workmen became very militant, aggressive, violent, indulged in unjustifiable or illegal strikes and the labour trouble in the factory became of an unprecedented nature. Various incidents have been mentioned in the Writ petition in support of the above allegations. But since the facts are seriously challenged and disputed on behalf of the Labour Union, which was subsequently added as a party respondent in the Writ petition, we do not propose to refer to them in any detail and express our views in regard to them one way or the other. The various facts alleged in the petition may be correct-may not be correct. We do not think it necessary to adjudicate upon them for the purpose of deciding the constitutional question. Suffice it to say that it is legitimate to take notice of the fact that various kinds of situations, such as, labour trouble of an unprecedented nature, a factory running in a recurring loss, paucity of adequate number of competent and suitable persons in the family of the partners, shareholders or the proprietors of a particular factory, or even outsiders, for the purpose of management, non-availability of raw-materials, insurmountable difficulty in the replacement of damaged or worn-out machineries and so on and so forth, may arise and are said to have arisen in one form or the other in the cases before us. Although the facts pleaded in all the Writ petitions are instances of one or more of such difficulties, we shall advert to the consideration of the constitutional question on the justifiable assumption that in a given case they may exist. Nobody could deny the possibility or probability of the existence of such facts in a particular industry.

3. Excel Wear, according to its case, finding it difficult, almost impossible, to carry on the business of the factory any longer served a notice dated May 2, 1977 on the State Government of Maharashtra, respondent No. 2 for previous approval of the intended closure of the undertaking in accordance with Section 25-O (1) of the Act. The State Government refused to accord the approval and communicated their decision in their letter dated the 1st August, 1977. It would be appropriate to quote here the relevant portion of this letter :-

"And whereas the Government of Maharashtra, after considering the aforesaid notice is satisfied that the reasons for the intended closure are prejudicial to public interest.

Now, therefore, in exercise of the powers conferred by sub-sec. (2) Section 25-O of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 the Government of Maharashtra hereby directs the Excel Wear. Bombay-400 025 not to close down the said undertaking."

The petitioner challenges the validity of the order aforesaid.

4. Mr. F. S. Nariman appeared for the petitioner in this case. The Union of India, respondent No. 1, was represented by Mr. U. R. Lalit and Mr. M. C. Bhandare appeared for respondent No. 2. The case of the Labour Union, the third respondent, was presented by Mr. S. J. Deshmukh. In the petitions under consideration Mr. Nadkarni appeared for an inte