T.L.VENKATARAMA AIYAR, J.

(1) THIS is an appeal by special leave against the award of the Industrial Tribunal, Punjab, passed in Reference No. 5 of 1959 on February 11, 1960. The appellant is a Public Limited Company incorporated under the Indian Companies Act, 1913, and it carries on business in the manufacture and sale of electric cables, wires etc. Its registered office is at Calcutta and its factory is located at Jamshedpur. Before January 1, 1956, it had no branches and was selling its goods through Messrs Gillanders Arbuthnot and Co., as its agents. During this period, a company incorporated in England and called the British Insulated Callendars Cables Ltd. referred to as the B.I.C.C. Ltd., in these proceedings was carrying on business in the sale of cables and wires in India with branches at Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Delhi, Trivandrum, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Kanpur, Bangalore and Ambala. Towards the end of 1955, the B.I.O.C. Ltd. decided to stop its trading in India and to close its branches. The appellant Company then decided to take them over and run them as its own. The workmen in the service of the B.I.C.C. Ltd. were most of them offered re-employment on terms and conditions contained in a communication dated November 23, 1955, sent by the appellant to them, and they having accepted them the branches began to function as those of the appellant from January 1, 1956. Among the branches thus taken over was the one at Ambala. The business of that branch consisted, apart from the sale of goods manufactured by the appellant, in the execution of the contracts of the B.I.C.C. Ltd., with the Government of Punjab, which it had taken over. These contracts were about to be completed in the beginning of 1958, and as, having regard to the volume of its own business in that area, the appellant considered that the maintenance of a branch at Ambala was unremunerative, it decided to close it. Accordingly on May 8, 1958, it terminated the services of all its workmen at Ambala, numbering 11 in all, paid them their salaries, wages in lieu of notice, retrenchment compensation, gratuity, and provident fund, and wound up the branch. According to the appellant, the workmen accepted these amounts without any protest and co-operated with the management in the despatch of its goods to Delhi and other places. It is the case of the workmen that they received the amounts under protest. But nothing, however, turns on this. On June 5, 1958, six of the workmen who had been discharged on May 8, 1958, sent a representation to the management complaining that the closure of the branch was unjustified, that as all the branches of the Company formed one unit, the retrenchment should be done according to "All India seniority basis" and that the workmen had a legal right to get employment in the other branches. A copy of this representation was sent to the Punjab Government, which issued a notification on February 2, 1959, referring the dispute for adjudication to the Industrial Tribunal, Punjab, under s. (1)(d) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, hereinafter referred to as "the Act." The reference was in these terms :

"WHETHER the retrenchment of the following workmen of Ambala Branch of the Indian Cable Company Ltd., is justified and legal under the provisions of section 25 G of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, and whether the seniority of workmen in all the branches of the company was pooled for the purpose of effecting retrenchment? If not, to what relief are the following workmen entitled ?"

(2) THEN follow the names of the six workmen. Before the Tribunal, the appellant raised certain preliminary objections to the maintainability of the reference. By its order dated August 17, 1959, the Tribunal overruled these objections. Then the matter was heard on the merits, and on February 11, 1960, the Tribunal pronounced its award directing the appellant to take back the "six workmen in their employment with effect from 8-5-19