Point of Law: Principle of jurisprudence that a right not exercised for a long time is non-existent. Even when there is no limitation period prescribed by any statute relating to certain proceedings, in such cases courts have coined doctrine of laches and delays as well as doctrine of acquiescence and non-suited litigants who approached Court belatedly without any justifiable explanation for bringing action after unreasonable delay. Doctrine of laches is in fact an application of maxim of equity “delay defeats equities.

ORDER :

1. Petitioner-M/s Bata India Limited (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Management’ for short) has called in question reference made by the appropriate Government referring the dispute to the Industrial Tribunal at Bangalore (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Tribunal’ for short) for adjudication of its order dated 31.03.2015.

2. The brief facts for filing the present writ petition, as borne out from the pleadings, are as follows:-

The petitioner claims to be a company incorporated and engaged in manufacture and sale of footwear in various parts of the country. It transpires that one Sri. D.C. Chikke Gowda (hereinafter referred to as ‘the workman’ for short) was appointed as Machine Operator in Grade-C, on 1-3-1993 and was placed on probation for a period of six months’ and confirmed thereafter on 1-9-1993. The workman was also a member of the Bata Employees’ Association. Alleging that the workman had indulged in certain acts of misconduct under the Standing Orders, two charge-sheets were issued against the workman on 4-1-2000 and 13-5-2000, prior to which the workman was placed under suspension on 1-2-2000.

3. The allegations against the workman and several others were that the workman being one of the co-employees of other charge-sheeted employees, had entered the enquiry hall and misbehaved with the Enquiry Officer by threatening him of dire consequences and used un-parliamentary language. The other charge-sheet against the workman was that when he was working on 223 machine in general shift between 6.00 a.m. and 2.00 p.m. left the place of work without permission and told the shift in-charge of one Sri. K.C. Dinesh that he will not allow the operators to start 220 machine until work norms or the demand of workers is decided. Broadly based on these allegations, the charge-sheet, as stated hereinabove, was issued against the workman to submit his reply to the allegations. Not being satisfied with the reply the disciplinary authority appointed an Enquiry Officer to conduct enquiry against the petitioner on 23-01-2001 in respect of the aforesaid charge-sheets. The workman did not submit any explanation thereafter. The Enquiry Officer conducted enquiry in respect of the charge-sheet dated 04-01-2000 and held the workman guilty of the allegation. In respect of the second charge-sheet dated 13-05-2000 the Enquiry Officer again held the workman guilty. During the pendency of consideration of the report of the Enquiry Officer by the Disciplinary Authority, the workman filed an application before the competent authority to recognize him as a protected workman on 24-04-2001 and during the pendency of those proceedings before the authority seeking the status of the protected workmen, the workman was dismissed from service on 16-07-2001.

4. The application filed by the workman for a declaration to be a protected workman was rejected on 17-08-2001. The Union filed a writ petition before this Court in Writ Petition No. 32751 of 2001 which came to be allowed by directing the Competent Authority i.e., the Assistant Labour Commissioner to reconsider the rejection by an order dated 30-11-2001 against which a writ appeal was filed by the management which came to be withdrawn on 7-04-2005,after which proceedings took place before the Assistant Labour Commissioner who granted status of protected workman to the workman with retrospective effect. This was called in question by the management before this Court in Writ Petition No. 6308 of 2005 which came to be dismissed by an order dated 31-01-2009, against which the management filed a writ appeal in Writ Appeal No. 1030 of 2009 which came to be disposed of by the Division Bench holding that the appeal was rendered infructuous due to efflux of time against which the Union filed a Special Leave Petition before the Apex Court which again came to be dismissed on 22-08-2014 and the dispute raised after two months was justified. Therefore, the issue with regard to delay in raising the dispute is also ma