The Industrial Court should consider the merits of the case, the balance of convenience, and the principles of industrial democracy before passing an interim order in a trade union dispute.

JUDGMENT :

Desai, J.—This matter can be disposed of at the stage of admission. Accordingly Rule will issue. Smt. Menon for Respondents 1 to 5 waives service. Respondent No. 6 being the Tribunal is a formal party and need not be served. Advocates are heard.

2. By this Writ Petition the Petitioners have impugned an interim order passed by the Industrial Court, Pune on 5th September 1989. A substantive dispute was referred to the Industrial Court on 20th October, 1988 after obtaining the permission of the Registrar. This was numbered as Application ICTU No. 4 of 1988 and was one under the procedure contemplated by Section 28(1-A). As usual the proceedings considered in a very leisurely manner and till April of next year only the pleadings had been completed. It would appear that thereafter an interim order was sought for and passed by the Tribunal in September 1989, that is, nearly 11 months after the proceedings were concerned.

3. For passing an interim order and granting interim reliefs in this absolute terms pending the hearing and final disposal of the proceedings before it, the Tribunal or the Court must keep before itself several considerations viz;

(1) fairly strong prima facie case,

(2) grave prejudice if injunction is not granted,

(3) finally the Tribunal should be satisfied that grant of injunction is also justification on the principal of balance of convenience.

4. The objections taken to the election of the working president of the Union as are summarised at page 41 of the paper book before us are only technical and not one of substance. It is the contention of the union and the managing committee that the managing committee almost unanimously supported the creating of the post of working president and the election of Petitioner No. 2 to this post. At the meeting of the general body held on 21st July, 1988 in pursuance of the decision of the managing committee of 1st July 1988, more than 7,000 members of the union out of the total membership of 8,500 were present and the resolutions, including the one for creation of this post and for appointment or co-option of petitioner to the post, as somewhat inelegantly put, were unanimously approved. With this background the Court would normally, in our opinion, be required to come to the conclusion in order to pass interim order after eleven months that such a post was beyond the purview of the constitution of the union. If the amendment was ultra vires the constitution then certainly an interim order would be justified; but then the Tribunal could on the same footing have passed the final order. Merely because notice was purportedly vague or fell short of a day or two would not be relevant consideration for passing such interlocutory order after the interval of eleven months particularly when the resolution appears to have been unanimously passed at the meeting of 21st July, 1988. In such proceedings under the Trade Unions Act we are concerned with industrial democracy and not technicalities. Industrial Democracy does not require the wishes of overwhelming majority, if not the totality of members to be thwarted particularly by the making of interim orders by resort to technicalities.

5. We have also considered the powers of the working president. It has been alleged that the working president is tampering with the moneys of the union and operating the bank account. This has been denied. In our opinion the working president cannot in law do so. There are two reasons for this. In the first place under the constitution the working president acts only when the president is absent. In the second place the working president is supposed to act in concert with one of the vice presidents. We are told that it is not the intention of the working president petitioner No. 2 to operate the bank account or utilise the funds of this union and that he only proposes to carry on the organisational work which may include representing the workers or petitioner No. 1 in such proceedings as may take place