( 1 ) HEARD the learned Counsel for the parties. The Government of Maharashtra in exercise of its powers vested by virtue of section 39 of the Industrial disputes Act, 1947 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act") notified that powers exercisable by it under sub-section (1) of section 10 and sub-section (5) of section 12 of the Act shall, in relation to the industrial Disputes Act, relating to disputes specified in the schedule, be exercised also by the Deputy Commissioner of Labour (Conciliation), Mumbai District office, Mumbai. In exercise of his powers the said officer, vide his order of reference dated 20th July, 2006 referred the alleged dispute between the petitioner and its workmen for determination to the Labour Court, Mumbai. The relevant part of the order of reference reads as under:

"now, therefore, in exercise of the powers conferred by Clauses (d) of sub-section (1) of section 10 and with section 12 (5) of the Industrial Disputes act, 1947 as delegated in the manner aforesaid, the Deputy Commissioner of Labour (Conciliation), Mumbai District Office, Mumbai is pleased to make a reference of the said dispute for adjudication of the Labour 1st Court, at Mumbai consisting of Shri K. R. Itolikar, Presiding Officer, constituted under Government notification Industries, Energy and Labour Department No. IDA2004/5/3871/lab3 dated 28. 5. 2004. SCHEDULE shri Bhaskar Mendon and 6 others as per schedule should be reinstated with full back wages and other consequential benefits as are applicable to permanent staff of the company and continuity of service w. e. f. 1. 11. 2001. sd/ (A. P. Joshi) Deputy Commissioner of Labour (Conc) Mumbai District, Mumbai. "

The legality and correctness of the above order is questioned by the petitioner by means of the present petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, primarily on the following grounds, and it prays for quashing of reference at the very threshold:(a) The respondent authority exceeded its jurisdiction in referring the dispute raised by respondent Nos. 2 to 8 for adjudication under section 10 (1) of the Act without primarily determining whether there existed relationship of employer-employee. The respondents were, if at all employees of the canteen contractor, consequences of their employment in relation to conditions of their services would not be fastened upon the petitioner. (b) It was a clear case of absence of an industrial dispute as contemplated under section 2 (k) of the Act. The employees of the Petrochemical and polymer Division including the employees with the head office were ceased to be the employees by their acceptance of voluntary retirement on account of closure notice dated 3rd June, 2002. Thus the appropriate Government had no jurisdiction to make any reference; (c) There was no prima facie material to establish the privity of contract between the parties, the workmen had no locus standi to raise the industrial dispute and the reference, in any case, is contrary to the settled principles of law and is liable to be quashed at the very threshold.

( 2 ) IN order to examine the merit or otherwise of these contentions, now we may refer to the facts giving rise to the present writ petition. The petitioner is a limited company registered under the Companies Act, 1956 and as per its case, was involved in manufacturing of petrochemicals and polymer. On 3rd June 2002, a notice was issued by the company seeking permission under section 25 (O) of the Act for closure of its petrochemicals and polymer undertaking permanently and also sought permission to terminate the services of all its workmen employed in that division totalling about 580. The Commissioner of Labour, mumbai, vide his order dated 20th March, 2003 granted permission to close down the undertaking. However, later on, the order was referred for review to the industrial Tribunal, Thane. This division of the company came to be demerged and hived off from the petitioner under a sche