judgment

Aftab Alam, J. —

1.Leave granted.

2.This appeal was filed against the order, dated August 2, 2004 by which a learned Single Judge of the Rajasthan High Court set aside both the interim and final orders, dated August 3 and September 6, 2001 passed by the Appellate Authority for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction, New Delhi (AAIFR) and remitted the matter to it for passing fresh order after giving an opportunity of hearing to all the concerned parties. The AAIFR order (that was set aside by the High Court) had dismissed the appeal filed by M/s.Jaipur Udyog Ltd., respondent No.1, and affirmed the order of its winding up passed by the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction Bench-II (BIFR) on November 24, 2000 in Case No.17 of 1987. The High Court took the view that the AAIFR had dismissed the appeal of respondent No.1 without giving it a reasonable opportunity of hearing and, accordingly, gave direction for fresh hearing of the matter. The order passed by the High Court was brought before this Court in appeal by a workers’ union, namely, Cement Workers Karamchari Sangh. The appeal was based on the plea that the remand to the AAIFR would not serve any useful purpose but would lead to an unnecessary and unreasonable prolongation of the matter causing great prejudice and distress to the workers who had already suffered much due to non-payment of their dues for a very long time. Thus the appeal at its inception appeared to present for consideration the simple and limited issue as to whether the High Court was justified in taking the view that the order passed by the AAIFR was in breach of the principles of natural justice and for that reason remitting the proceeding to it.

3.However, during the pendency of the proceeding before this Court certain developments took place that tend to somewhat shift the focus from the limited issue as indicated above. On August 26, 2006, while the Special Leave Petition giving rise to the appeal was pending before the Court, the appellant-workers’ union entered into a bipartite agreement with respondent No.1, M/s.Jaipur Udyog Limited (JUL) in purported settlement of the dues of the workers/employees at Sawai Madhopur, Phallodi Quarries, Jaipur, Delhi and Chandigarh offices represented by the Sangh. A copy of the agreement was brought on record as Annexure ‘A’ to I.A.No.8 of 2006 filed in the Special Leave Petition on August 31, 2006. The settlement between the appellant-union and JUL gave rise to a chorus of protests by other sections of workers who alleged that the settlement was fraudulent, collusive and a sell out to the management of JUL. A number of impleadment applications were filed (vide I.A.Nos.9 & 10 of 2006, 12 of 2007) on behalf of different Unions claiming to represent the workmen of JUL at Jaipur and at Kanpur.

4. On December 4, 2006 when the Special Leave Petition was taken up the settlement was brought to the notice of the Court and a joint prayer was made by the appellant and JUL that the dispute between the employees and the employer may be permitted to be settled in terms of the agreement and the AAFIR be directed to monitor the implementation of this settlement in letter and spirit. The other Unions seeking impleadment in the proceedings before this Court raised strong objections to the settlement. The Court, however, permitted the agreement to be implemented in terms of prayer (b) in the application (I.A.No.8 of 2006) subject, of course, to the rights of those Unions who had filed applications for impleadment and/or had approached the Labour Commissioner (against the settlement in question). On April 10, 2007, it was represented before the Court that a large number of employees had received payments in terms of the settlement. The claim made on behalf of the appellant and respondent No.1 was disputed by others. Hence, the Court felt the need for some investigation on certain issues of facts and as agreed by the counsel for the parties, appointed Mr. Justice N