Industrial Disputes

JUDGMENT :

RAJESH BINDAL, J.

1. Aggrieved against the order¹ [Dated 11.05.2011] passed by the High Court² [High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Indore] in the Writ Petition³ [W.P. (C) No. 824 of 2011] filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, the Management is before this Court in appeal. Vide the aforesaid order [dated 11.05.2011] three orders⁴ [Dated 30.06.2010, 12.08.2010 and 06.10.2010 passed by the Labour Court] passed by the Labour Court⁵ [Labour Court, Dewas, Madhya Pradesh] were set aside with a direction to the Labour Court to allow the appellants-Management to exercise liberty only in relation to correction of factual errors in the order.

FACTS

2. The facts of the case, as evident from the record, are that the appellants-Management moved an application under Section 25-N of the ID Act⁶ [The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (‘ID Act’)] seeking permission to retrench 45 workmen w.e.f. 01.12.2000. However, vide order dated 16.10.2000, the permission was declined by the Labour Commissioner and the application filed by the appellants-Management was rejected. Thereafter, the workmen raised certain demands on 09.10.2001, seeking increase of wages and other facilities. The Labour Commissioner referred the dispute to the Labour Court vide order dated 07.08.2002. Statement of claim was filed by the respondents-workmen before the Labour Court to which reply was filed by the appellant-Management. Finally, the matter was adjudicated. The claim made by the respondents-workmen was accepted by the Labour Court vide Award dated 10.02.2006.

2.1 Challenging the aforesaid Award, the appellants-Management filed a Writ Petition⁷ [W.P. No. 2375 (S) of 2006 before the High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Indore] before the High Court [High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Indore]. As an interim measure, the High Court, while issuing notice, stayed the operation of the Impugned Award dated 10.02.2006 of the Labour Court. Plea raised by the appellants-Management before the High Court was that there being more than 100 workmen in the factory of the appellants, reference under Section 10 of the ID Act should have been made by the Labour Commissioner only to the Industrial Tribunal. Vide order dated 06.01.2010, the High Court accepted the Writ Petition filed by the appellants-Management. The prayer made was that there being a jurisdictional error with reference to the court to which the reference could be made, as the appellants-Management had more than 100 workmen, liberty be granted to the appellants to approach the Labour Court by filing an appropriate application for correction of the factual error. Respondent No. 1 being aggrieved by the order passed by the High Court filed a Review Petition⁸ [Review Petition No. 46 of 2010] before the High Court. However, the same was dismissed by the High Court vide order dated 12.03.2010.

2.2 The appellants-Management filed an application before the Labour Court for correction of the factual error annexing documents, showing that even in the returns filed with the Employees State Insurance Corporation and Life Insurance Corporation etc. more than 100 workmen were shown to be employed with the appellants-Management. Reply was filed by the respondents-workmen to the application, objecting to the documents placed on record by the appellants-Management along with the application for correction of the error. The Labour Court vide order dated 30.06.2010 dealing with the objections raised by the respondents-workmen, issued notice in the application and allowed the appellants-Management to file the documents in support of its claim.

2.3 Again, objection was raised by the respondents-workmen regarding maintainability of the application before the Labour Court. However, the same was also rejected vide order dated 12.08.2010. Subsequently, an application was filed by the appellants-Management for summoning of official records and the witnesses. The same was allowed by the Labour Court vide order dated 06.10.2010. At that stage