Judgment

KRISHNA IYER, J. :- Industrial jurisprudence, based on the values of social justice which is integral to our Constitution, has been built around several legislations enacted by Parliament, one of which is the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965, (the Bonus Act, for short). The bonus branch of labour law, however, is not exhausted by this enactment and has been replenished by judge made law, drawing sustenance from practice and precedent, custom and contract. Against this back-drop, we have to state and assess the single issue strenuously canvassed before us by the appellant-management challenging the award of the Industrial Tribunal and urging that the Bonus Act, as amended by Act 23 of 1976, annihilates all species of bonus including customary and contractual bonus. The claim of the Union of Workmen is for customary bonus, the reference to industrial adjudication relates to customary bonus and the special leave to appeal granted by this court is confined to customary bonus as the common basis and focuses on the sole legal issue of negation of that kind of bonus by virtue of the provisions of the amending Act 23 of 1976.

2. The matrix of minimal facts necessary to highlight the limit