S. 17(1) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, which provides for the publication of an award within 30 days of its receipt by the appropriate Government, is directory and not mandatory.

Judgment

G. K. MITTER

( 1 ) THIS appeal by the Remington Rand of India Ltd. against their workmen arises out of an award dated 5/10/1965 made by the Industrial Tribunal, Alleppey published in the Kerala Gazette dated 15/11/1966.

( 2 ) THE first point taken against this award is that it cannot be given effect to as it was published beyond the period fixed in the Act. The notification accompanying the gazette publication stated that Government had received the award on 14/10/1966. It was argued by Mr. Gokhale that in terms of S. 17 (1) of the Industrial Disputes Act the award had to be published within a period of thirty days from the date of its receipt by the appropriate Government". According to learned counsel, the award having reached Government on 14/10/1966 it should have been published at the latest on 12/11/1966 as S. 17 (1) of the Act was mandatory. Our attention was also drawn to sub-s. (2) of S. 17 according to which it is only the award published under sub-s. (1) of S. 17 that is final and cannot be called in question by any court in any manner. We were also referred to S. 17-A and S. 19. Under sub-s. (1) of S. 17-A an award becomes enforceable on the expiry of thirty days from the date of its publication under S. 17 and under sub-s. (3) of S. 19 an award is to remain in operation for a period of one year from the date on which the award becomes enforceable under S. 17-A. From all these provisions it was argued that the limits of time mentioned fin the Sections were mandatory and not directory and if an award was published beyond the period of thirty days, in contravention of S. 17 (1) it could not be given effect to. To fortify his argument, learned control relied on certain observation of this Court in Sinilk Ltd. v. Govt. of Andhra Pradesh, (1964) 2 SCR 448 at p. 452: (AIR 1964 SC 160 at p. 162 ). In that case, there was an order referring certain disputes between the appellant and its workmen to the Industrial Tribunal, Andhra Pradesh. The Tribunal sent its award to Government in September 1957. Before the Government could publish the award, the parties to the dispute came to a settlement and on 1/10/1957 a letter was written to the Government jointly on behalf of the employer and the employees intimating that the dispute which had been pending before the Tribunal had been settled and a request was made to Government not to publish the award. Government expressed its inability to withhold the publication taking the view that S. 17 of the Act was mandatory. The appellants filed writ petitions before the High Court of Andhra Pradesh under Article 226 of the Constitution praying that Government might be directed not to publish the award sent to it by the Industrial Tribunal. The High Court held that S. 17 was mandatory and it was not open to Government to withhold publication. The contention on behalf of the appellants was that S. 17 providing for the publication of the award was directory and not mandatory. Mr. Gokhale relied on the passage at p. 452 (of SCR) :

"it is clear therefore, reading S. 17 and S. 17-A together, that the intention behind S. 17 (1) is that a duty is cast on Government to publish the award within thirty days of its receipt and the provision for its publication is mandatory and not merely directory. "

ULTIMATELY, however, on a conspectus of Sections 17, 17-A, 18 and 19, it was observed that

"though S. 17 (1) is mandatory and the Government is bound to publish the award received by it from an industrial tribunal, the situation arising in a case like the present is of an exceptional nature and requires a reconciliation between S. 18 (1) and S. 18 (3), and in such a situation, the only way to reconcile the two provisions is to withhold the publication of the award, as a binding settlement has already come into force. . . . . . . . . . ".

REFERENCE was also made to the case of Erumeli Estate v. Industrial Tribunal, 1962-2 Lab LJ 144 (Ker ). There the question directly arose as to whether non-publicati