An unrecognised union can represent individual workmen in disputes falling under Section 2A of the Industrial Disputes Act and does not need substantial support from workmen or a recognised union.

JUDGMENT :

F.I. Rebello, J.—Rule. By consent heard forthwith.

2. Petitioner is a registered trade union and represents the workmen employed in the undertaking of the respondent. It is the case of the petitioners that the workmen employed with respondent No. 1 in view of the fact that General Employees Union of which they were members did not make efforts to improve the wages and other conditions of service of the workmen, ultimately in or about 1983 decided to leave the said General Employees Union and joined the petitioner union for more effective representation before the management of the Respondent. It is the case of the Petitioner union that this was not liked by the Management who sponsored the Bhartiya Kamgar Sena and on account of that based on alleged ex-parte enquiries dismissed a large number of workmen. It is not necessary to dwell at length on that aspect. Suffice it to say that the respondent management came to dismiss 96 workmen. The appropriate Government referred the action of the respondent in dismissing the workmen to the Industrial Tribunal in the year 1988. The petitioners were shown as party who had espoused the case of said individual workmen. It may be mentioned that the appropriate Government did not make a single reference in respect of each dismissed workman but clubbed several workmen together in one reference. On the reference being made parties filed their claim statement and written statement. The petitioner union raised objection that the enquiries held were not fair and proper. By Part I Award the learned Labour Court was pleased to hold that the enquiry held was not fair and proper.

3. After the said order, an application came to be made by the respondent company dated October 7, 1996. It was contended therein that in the written statement they had taken a stand that the petitioner union has no locus standi to file statement of claim and represent the workmen concerned in the reference inasmuch as the reference was in respect of a dispute being an individual dispute u/s 2(k) and not an Industrial dispute u/s 2(k) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The Respondent Company therefore, called on the Tribunal to decide the said issue as a preliminary issue before deciding the other issues. On behalf of the petitioner union, a reply came to be filed dated October 18, 1996. It was their contention that the application as filed is not maintainable in law. They further set out that the dispute raised by the Union is in respect of non- employment and that it is well settled principle of law that unrecognised union has right to take up the issue of workmen regarding termination, discharge or dismissal. Reference was made to the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act as amended in the State of Maharashtra. So also it was contended that the issue raised by the respondent company is an attempt to delay the proceedings.

4. The application came to be heard by the learned Labour Court and by its award of September 19, 2003, it was pleased to hold that an appreciable number of workmen are not on the side of the petitioner Union and that the petitioner union was an unrecognised union. The Labour Court was further pleased to observe that this is not an individual dispute supported by unrecognized union and as such the reference is not tenable. The Labour Court in the course of discussion, adverted to the provisions of the Maharashtra Recognition of Trade Unions and Prevention of Unfair Labour Practices Act, 1971 (hereinafter referred to as MRTU & PULP Act) as also the provision of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 as amended in the State of Maharashtra, more specifically to Section 20(2)(b) as also to the proviso to Section 30, the Labour Court posed itself a following question:

"But when the dispute is regarding the retrenchment, discharge, dismissal of an employee, there in an exception. It means that an employee can agitate his dispute through an unrecognised union but can a group of employees agitate their gr