V.R.KRISHNA IYER, J.

(1) A narration of the skeletal facts, sufficient to get a hang of the four legal issues debated at the Bar in this appeal, by special leave, will help direct the discussion along a disciplined course, although the broader social arguments addressed have spilled over the banks of the jural stream.

(2) NAG Devi, a locality in the city of Bombay, is studded with small hardware businesses where pipes and fittings, nuts and bolts, tools and other small products, are made and/or sold. These establishments, well over a thousand, employ a considerable number of workmen in the neighbourhood of 5000, although each unit has (barring four), less than the statutory minimum of 20 workmen. This heavy density of undertakings and workers naturally produced an association of employers and a union of workmen, each recognising the other, for the necessary convenience of collective bargaining. Apparently, these hardware merchants huddled together in the small area, were getting on well in their business and in their relations with their workmen, and this goodwill manifested itself in ex gratia payments to them of small amounts for a number of years pri