The scope of enquiry on an application under S.22 of the Industrial Disputes (Appellate Tribunal) Act, 1950, is to determine whether there is a prima facie case made of the workmen and the employer, his agent or manager was not actuated by any improper motives or did not resort to any unfair practice or victimisation in the matter of the proposed discharge or dismissal of the workmen.

Judgement

S. K. DAS J. - This is an appeal by special leave from a decision of the Labour Appellate Tribunal, Calcutta, dated 25-9-1953. The relevant facts lie within a narrow compass. On 4-5-1953 the appellant, the Rohtas Industries Limited, Dalmianagar, made an application to the said Labour Appellate tribunal under S.22, Industrial Disputes (Appellate Tribunal) Act, 1950 (48 of 1950), hereinafter referred to as the Act, for permission to discharge ninety-six temporary employees in the following circumstances.

The appellant company have a number of factories at Dalmianagar including a cement factory, power house, pulp mill, paper factory, chemical factory, factory for manufacture of certain acids and an asbestos cement factory. The company had a number of temporary employees who were engaged temporarily in connection with certain works for the extension and enlargement of those factories. The terms of employment of these employees were embodied in a temporary appointment form, which was signed by the employees as well as the management. The said terms stated, inter alia, that

"the company could discharge the employee at any time without notice, compensation and giving any reason therefor, whether on completion of the work on which the employee was engaged or earlier";

The terms also made it clear that whether the employee was on the same job or some other job, in the same department or some other, either on temporary work or permanent work, he would remain a temporary employee until the Work Manager issued a written letter expressly making him a permanent employee. As and when the various erection works were completed, the temporary employees were first put on a list of spare men and then discharged. Some time prior to 3-7-1952, sixty-nine of the temporary employees were spared for being discharged.

The names of these sixty-nine employees were given in two lists, Appendix A and Appendix B. It was alleged that on 3-7-1952, a number of these employees headed by one Brij Nandan Pandey entered the office of Shri L.C.Jain, Manager of the Cement Factory, and Brij Nandan Pandey assaulted the Manager. A serious situation resulted from that incident and the company stopped the sixty-nine temporary employees from coming to their factories or to their Labour Office and issued a notice to them stating that the company were applying to the Industrial Tribunal for permission to terminate their services. At that time an industrial dispute relating to, among other things, the payment of bonus to the employees was pending adjudication in the Court of the Industrial Tribunal, Bihar.

On 5-7-1952, the appellant company made an application to the said Tribunal for permission to discharge the sixty-nine employees. The application was made under S.33, Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. On 12-7-1952, forty nine out of the said sixty-nine employees made an application, under S.33-A, Industrial Disputes Act, to the Chairman, Industrial Tribunal, Bihar, on the allegation that the appellant company had discharged sixty-nine employees on 5-7-1952 and had there by contravened S.33, Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. On 20-8-1952 3 thirty six more temporary employees were put on the spare list and an application was made to the Industrial Tribunal, Bihar, for including these thirty-six persons also in the application which had been made for permission to discharge the temporary men; thus, all told, the application related to one hundred and five temporary men.

The case of the appellant company was that of the completion of the erection works for which these temporary men were originally employed was a gradual process and so far as the Cement Factory erection work was concerned, it was completed by the end of March 1952 except for certain minor additions and alterations. Therefore, the appellant company no longer required the services of the temporary employees and they were put on the spare list as and when their services were no longer required.

2. The two applications