Employers are entitled to demand undertakings and bonds of good behaviour from employees for maintaining discipline, protecting property, business interests, and the class of society which comes to the establishment as customers.

JUDGMENT - CHITRE J.G., J.:---The petitioner union is challenging the correctness, propriety and legality of the judgment and Award passed by the Industrial Court, Pune in matter of Complaint (U.L.P.) No. 116 of 1992, which was made by the petitioner in view of the provisions of section 28(1) read with Item No. 6 of Schedule II and Items No. 9 and 10 of Schedule IV of the Maharashtra Recognition of Trade Unions Prevention of Unfair Labour Practices Act, 1971.

2. Few facts would be necessary to be mentioned for better understanding of the matter. The respondents run a hotel under name and style "Hotel Executive Ashok" situate at 5, University Road, Shivaji Nagar, Pune, wherein about 100 workers happened to be employed. The complainant Union started functioning in the said establishment of the respondents in the last quarter of 1991 and the majority of the workmen employed in the said hotel became its members. It has been alleged by the petitioner that the management of the said hotel did not like the advent of the complaintant Union in the hotel and, therefore, they resorted to an illegal lock out towards the members of the complainant Union with effect from 24-2-1992. It has been alleged that the respondents have no reasonable cause to demand good conduct bond/undertaking from the members of the complainant Union in a specified form, which has been annexed to the complaint before the Industrial Court as Exhibit U-21, as a condition precedent to allow them to work. The petitioner alleged in the present petition that the said act on the part of the management an is "illegal lock out" with effect from 24-2-1992 and formed unfair labour practice which has been deprecated by the provisions of Item No. 6 of Schedule II and Items No. 9 and 10 of Schedule IV of the M.R.T.U. and P.U.L.P. Act.

3. The respondents contended that the said Act was not unfair labour practice at all. The respondents also contended that there was no illegal lock out. It is contended by the respondents that the members of the Union started wearing red bands on the heads inside the hotel premises during working hours and also indulged in acts of violence, terrorism, and slogan-shouting etc. and therefore, the management was left with no alternative but to ask for the undertaking from them that they would not engage themselves in such behaviour. It was also contended that the Act of the members of the Union in refusing to give the undertaking amounts to illegal strike with effect from 24-2-1992 and, therefore, the respondents would not be blamable for illegal lock out.

4. The Industrial Court, which was dealing with the said complaint, recorded its findings that complainant did not prove that the respondent company had effected illegal lock out with effect from 24-2-1992. The said Court also held that the complainant did not prove that the insistence of the respondent company for bond/undertaking of good conduct from the members of the complainant Union did not amount to unfair labour practice. It also held that the complainant did not prove that, false, frivolous charge-sheets have been issued to the members of the complainant Union under the grab of absenteeism. Thus the said Court dismissed the complaint of the petitioner Union.

5. Shri N.A. Kulkarni, Counsel appearing for the petitioner, submitted by making reference to the evidence on record that admissions given by Arvind Jain, a witness who happens to be from the employment of the respondents, prove the case of the petitioner and the learned Industrial Court did not notice this important aspect of the case and had landed in error in not giving effect to it while passing the judgment and Award which has been made the target of challenge in this petition. Shri N.A. Kulkarni submitted that asking the said undertaking and bond of good behaviour from the members of the petitioner Union amounts to unfair labour practice and the Industrial Court has committed an error in not endorsing that fact in its judgment

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