The main legal point established in the judgment is that the complaint filed by an individual employee or an unrecognized union is not maintainable when there is a recognized union functioning in the undertaking, and the settlement reached with the recognized union is binding on all the employees.

JUDGMENT - R.J. KOCHAR, J.:---The petitioner company is aggrieved by an order passed by the Industrial Court on 5th April, 1997 on an application filed by the petitioner company in the pending Complaint ULP No. 455 of 1989 making the prayer that in the circumstances mentioned in the application, the said application should be decided as it goes to the route of the complaint filed by an individual employee when the recognised union is in existence in the undertaking and is operating. The learned Member of the Industrial Court passed an order saying that the said application would be decided along with the main complaint at the time of final hearing of the matter.

2. The petitioner company appears to have permanently closed down its place of business of manufacturing and sale of Cigarettes and Tobacco products with effect from 2nd February, 1991. It further appears from the averments that except the two employees all others had accepted terminal benefits arising out of the closure of the company. It appears that the recognised union had challenged the closure of the company by filing a Complaint ULP No. 564 of 1988. It further appears that the petitioner company arrived at the settlement with the recognised union and the said complaint was dismissed for non prosecution as settled out of Court on 21-4-1989. It further appears that the recognised union as a matter of law represented all the employees of the petitioner employees and said settlement was binding on all the employees. It appears that on the very next day i.e. 22-4-1989, the two individual employees filed another Complaint ULP No. 455 of 1989 claiming to represent 20 workmen making identical allegations as made in the Complaint ULP No. 564 of 1988 filed by the recognised union. It further appears from the record that during the course of the proceedings except one Shri S. Mariadasan all others got deleted from the complaint by and order dated 16-2-1991 passed by the Industrial Court. Presently the said complaint is being contested only by the said individual employee. It further appears that the unrecognised union also filed a complaint of an unfair labour practice being Complaint No. 538 of 1989 challenging the validity of the settlement dated 19-4-1989 reached by the petitioner company with the recognised union. I have separately dismissed the said complaint by my order passed in Writ Petition No. 1143 of 1997 as not maintainable on the ground that the said complaint which was filed by the unrecognised union was not maintainable.

3. During the course of the proceedings the petitioners filed the aforesaid application requesting the Industrial Court to decide the question of maintainability of the said complaint in view of the judgment in the case of the (Shramik Utkarsha Sahba v. Raymond Woollen Mills Ltd.)1, reported in 1995(3) Bom.C.R. 450. The contention of the petitioner company was that the Supreme Court has categorically laid down the law that when there is a recognised union functioning in the undertaking no unrecognised union has any right to file any complaint of unfair labour practice under the MRTU PULP Act. This point has been decided by me in the aforesaid writ petition. In the present case in my opinion the Industrial Court should have decided the said application as it has now been very well laid down that the complaint filed by an unrecognised Union is not maintainable and this point goes to the root of the matter in the peculiar legal position arising out of the Supreme Court judgment in the case of Raymond Woolen Mills Ltd. (supra). According to me instead of making the parties to undergo the ordeal of the entire trial the Industrial Court ought to have decided this point particularly when the 19 workmen out of 20 had accepted the settlement filed by the recognised union and in my opinion the present respondent is carrying on the litigation frivolously, when the respondent No. 1 individual employee has no legal right to file a complaint of unfair

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