The court established that the management's action was contrary to the law laid down by the Supreme Court and emphasized the importance of adhering to the provisions of the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946.

( 1 ) THIS petitioners have challenged the correctness of the award made by the Labour Court, bangalore, upholding the action taken by the 1st respondent-management by retiring them on their completion of 40 years' service on the ground that such retirement was permitted by the standing Orders in force which governed the service conditions of the workmen and certification of such Standing Orders was within the jurisdiction of the Certifying Officer who certified the said orders under the relevant provisions of the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 (for short 'the Act' ).

( 2 ) THE Certified Standing Order which governed the retirement age of the petitioners reads as under: "an operative will be retired from the employment in the company when he completes 60 years of age or 40 years of continuous service whichever occurs earlier. " it is not in dispute that the petitioners had not completed 60 years of age on the date they were retired but they had completed 40 years of continuous service. The reference made to the Labour court was on the fallowing lines: "are the management of Sri Krishnarajendra Mills Limited, Mysore justified in retiring the services of Sriyuths Nanjaiah, Roving-44 and Nagaiah, Spinning-172, with effect from 1-6-1972 and 30-6-1972 respectively before attaining the age of 60 years?"

( 3 ) THE Labour Court on the pleadings of the parties framed the following additional issues :-" 1. Are the certified standing orders ultra vires ? 2 Is there any custom or service conditions other than certified standing orders that a workman should retire only on attaining the age of 60 years ? 3. Whether the pleas raised in additional claim statement are beyond the terms of reference ?

( 4 ) WHETHER the workmen Nanjaiah and Nagaiah were victimised ?

( 5 ) WHAT Order?" the parties let in oral evidence in support of their respective contentions. The management also relied on the Certified Standing Order 24 (a) and contended that that Standing Order was part and parcel of the terms and conditions of service which had been duly certified by the appropriate authority under the Act, and the workmen having given their consent to such certification it is not open to them to contend that the Standing Order is ultra vires of the provisions of the Act. The oral evidence on this point will not be very material since if the management were to succeed in their contention that the standing order as framed in the year 1968 was not ultra vires of the powers of the certifying authority, the order of termination passed against the workmen should be sustained. 3. The power of certification conferred on the Certifying Officer is controlled by the provisions of Section 4 and 5 of the Act. Under Section 4, a standing order shall be certifiable under the act, if provision is made thereunder for every matter set out in the Schedule to the Act and is otherwise in conformity with the provisions of the Act. Under Section 5, the Certifying Officer after hearing the parties can certify the Standing Orders if he is satisfied that that those Standing orders are fair and reasonable from the point of view of the employer and also from the point of view of its workmen. In this case, we are not concerned with the power of the Certifying Officer under Section 5 but only with Section 4 (a) and (b) of the Act. On the plain language of Section 4, there could be no dispute that the Certifying Officer can only certify Standing Orders placed before him for certification if those Standing Orders are in conformity with the provisions of the act and if those Standing Orders relate to matters set out in the schedule which are applicable to the Industrial Establishment. The schedule to the Act, as it stood then, did not provide for the retirement of the workmen at all. However, in cases which had come up before the High Courts on this point, a contention was raised by the managements that the items mentioned in the schedule are not exhaustive o