THE HIGH COURT CANNOT EXERCISE APPELLATE JURISDICTION UNDER ARTICLE 227 OF THE CONSTITUTION AND CANNOT UPSET DISCRETIONARY ORDERS OF TRIBUNALS OR COURTS.

JUDGMENT :

Gajendragadkar, J.

1. This appeal has been brought to this Court by the appellant Rajkamal Kalamandir (P) Ltd. with a certificate issued by the Bombay High Court against its order passed under Article 227 of the Constitution and the narrow point which Mr Phadke for the appellant has raised in support of the appeal is that the order under appeal is outside the jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 227.

2. It appears that between the appellant and it employees, industrial disputes arose in respect of several items and they were referred to the Industrial Tribunal at Bombay for adjudication on 30-3-1957. The Tribunal first took up the question of dearness allowance, leave with wages, provident fund and other subsidiary matters for its decision and on 4-6-1958, it pronounced its award on these points. A claim for revised wage structure and increase in wages had also been included in the reference and for dealing with this claim in a scientific way, the Tribunal obtained the assistance of four assessors, two on each side. The assessors made their report on 2-2-1959. This report was intended to assist the Tribunal to ascertain the relative skill of workmen before classifying them into several categories. After receiving this report, the Tribunal proceeded to pronounce its award in respect of the claim for wages and classification of workmen. This award was pronounced on 3-2-1960. It this award, the Tribunal considered the question as to whether the relief granted by it to the respondents in regard to dearness allowance and revised pay scales should be retrospective. In respect of dearness allowance, it directed that the dearness allowance ordered to be paid by the award should take effect from 1-4-1957. In regard to the wages, however, it held that the revised pay scales shall be introduced as from 1-4-1959. As invariably happens, after a new wage structure was directed by the award, an order had to be made in respect of adjustments of the several employees in different categories evolved by the award and so, an appropriate direction was given by the Tribunal in respect of such adjustments. After this award was pronounced, the respondents moved the High Court by an application under Article 227 of the Constitution on 13-6-1960. On their behalf, it was urged that the Tribunal had committed an obvious error in not directing the enforcement of the new wage scale as from 1-4-1957. This application has been allowed by the High Court and the award has been corrected in that behalf. Under the order passed by the High Court, the operation of the award which deals with the revised pay scales has to come into force from 1-4-1957. It is the validity of this order that Mr. Phadke challenges before us in the present appeal.

3. The point raised by Mr. Phadke naturally lies within a very narrow compass. Indeed, Mr. Phadke is in the very fortunate position of being able to cite a number of decisions of this Court which have consistently taken the view that in exercising its jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution, the High Court cannot sit in appeal over the orders of tribunals.

4. This question came to be considered by this Court as early as 1954, in the case of Waryam Singh v. Amarnath, (1954) SCR 565. Das, J., as he then was, who spoke for the Court observed that the power of superintendence conferred by Article 227, as pointed out by Harries, C.J. in Dalmia Jain Airways Ltd. v. Sukumar Mukherjee, AIR 1951 Calcutta 193, should be exercised most sparingly and only in appropriate cases in order to keep the subordinate courts within the bounds of their authority and not for correcting mere errors.

5. In Satyanarayan Laxminarayan Hegde v. Mallikarjun Bhavanappa Tirumale, (1960) 1 SCR 890 same as A.I.R. 1960 SC 137, this Court has observed that it had noticed that in the application to the High Court, the respondent asked that court to exercise its power of superintendence under Article 227 of the Constitution by the method of