Ashutosh Kumar, J.—Heard Mr. Lallan Kumar, the learned Advocate for the appellant and Mr. Alok Kumar Sinha, the learned counsel for the respondent 2nd set/Shree Baidyanath Ayurved Bhawan Private Ltd.

2. Mr. Rohitab Das, the learned counsel for the State is also present.

3. The judgment under challenge is dated 02.08.2017, passed in C.W.J.C. No. 8999 of 2014, whereby the Award dated 05.02.2014, passed by the Industrial Tribunal, Patna in Reference Case No. 36 of 2007, in favour of the appellant, has been set-aside.

4. The respondent 2nd set/Shree Baidyanath Ayurved Bhawan Private Ltd. had challenged the Award dated 05.02.2014, referred to above, on various grounds, the primary one being that the Reference in itself was bad as it was not an industrial dispute, but an individual dispute regarding the retirement age of the appellant herein.

5. Apart from that, it was urged on behalf of the respondent 2nd set before the writ Court that the issue of change in the date of birth was raked up after about 34 years and immediately before the date of superannuation of the appellant. It was contended that the appellant could not have been treated as a workman under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 as he had been serving as a Law Officer for the organization and also edited a pictorial magazine taken out by the organization.

6. The learned single Judge has taken note of the facts that the appellant had given a declaration on 06.11.1970, while filing up his nomination form, about his date of birth being 05.01.1945. Shortly, before he was to become of the age of 60 years, he communicated on 09.01.2004 to the respondent that necessary changes be carried out in his date of birth and such claim was based on the copy of the Admit Card issued by the Bihar School Examination Board, Patna in which his date of birth was shown as 05.01.1951. But along with that communication, the appellant never supplied the Matriculation Certificate.

7. While the issue was being deliberated upon by the Management, it was discovered that in the Gratuity Insurance Scheme documents, the date of birth of the appellant was recorded as 27.01.1947 instead of 05.01.1945, which was his earlier declaration. The learned single Judge could not ascertain whether it was inadvertent or was the result of collusion and connivance of the appellant for creating doubts about the first declaration of his age.

8. Be that as it may, taking the line of least resistance, the later declaration in the Gratuity papers of the appellant was accepted as his date of birth, giving him a premium of 2 years and he was made to superannuate by calculating the age of 60 years from 27.01.1947.

9. Not satisfied by this, the appellant went before the Industrial Tribunal, wherein the Reference was for adjudication whether the action of the Management in retiring him was justified in view of his date of birth being 05.01.1951 as shown in the Admit Card of the Bihar School Examination Board.

10. It is being reiterated that till date, the Matriculation Certificate has not been furnished by the appellant.

11. The learned single Judge appears to have gone into the entire gamut of evidence adduced on behalf of the appellant and came to the conclusion that the dispute which the Tribunal had adjudicated was not the industrial dispute in any sense of the term, but was an individual dispute. The reasons for the learned single Judge to hold that it was not an industrial dispute were that the appellant could not be called a workman as he was the editor of a pictorial magazine of the organization and that he had been discharging his responsibilities and functions of a Law Officer of the company/organization. It was found by the learned single Judge that this dispensation of the appellant was in the nature of managerial work and, therefore, it was absolutely wrong for the Tribunal to have held that the appellant was a workman. For this reason alone, the Reference was found to have been made on a wrong premise and, therefore, any d