Workmen of a company can raise a dispute regarding the employment or non-employment of a person in whose employment they have a direct or substantial interest.

( 1 ) THE facts in this case are shortly as follows: The petitioner is a company incorporated under the Indian Companies Act. The respondent No. 3 is an employee of the Rajabhat Tea Co. Ltd. and is at present employed as the Assistant Factory Supervisor of the Rajabhat Tea Estate, belonging to the said Rajabhat Tea Co. Ltd. The Managing Agents of both the said companies are Messrs. Mcleod and Co. Ltd. It is stated on behalf of the respondent No. 4 that the said Messrs. Mcleod and Co. Ltd. are also the Managing Agents of several other Tea Gardens in the Dooars belonging to different companies. In or about the year 1944, the management of the aforesaid Tea Estate, of which the said Messrs. Mcleod and Co, Ltd. are the. Managing Agents, compiled one register of all the members of the Indian clerical statf in all such gardens with a view to ensuring an equitable system of promotion, and the clerical employees of all the said gardens came to be treated as one body, from which, when vacancies would occur, the postings would be made in accordance with seniority and capability, irrespective of the gardens in which they would be serving. It is further said that this has become a term of employment and condition of service of the workmen of the said Tea Estates. If this is true and correct then, it is claimed, that the respondent No. 3, I. B. Ganguly is entitled to be promoted to the post of Factory-Supervisor of the Bhatkawa Tea Estate, as he was the seniormost member of the Indian clerical staff in the register. The company, on the other hand, denies that there was any common register and that there was any such terms of employment or condition of service of the workmen in the said Tea Estates, including the Bhatkawa Tea Estate, belonging to the Bhatkawa Tea Co. The workmen of the Bhatkawa Tea Estate belonging to the Bhatkawa Tea Co. raised an industrial dispute and on the 6th August, 1958 the Government of West Bengal made an order of reference under Section 10 of the Industrial Disputes Act to the Second Labour Court, Calcutta of the following issues :"is the management justified in not promoting Sri I. B. Ganguly, Assistant Factory Supervisor of Rajabhat Tea Estate, to the post of Factory Supervisor of Bhatkawa Tea Estate, both the Estates, being under the same Managing Agency of Mcleod and Co. Ltd? To what relief is he entitled?"

( 2 ) WHAT is particularly to be noted is, that this Order of reference was made, of an industrial dispute said to exist between M/s Bhatkawa Tea Estate (Managing Agents -- Mcleod and Co. Calcutta) P. O. Garopara Jalpaiguri, and Sri I. B. Ganguly one of the employees of the Rajabhat Tea Estate, under the Managing Agency of Mcleod and Go. Ltd. , Calcutta, represented by the Tea Garden Indian Employees' Association, P. O. Kalchini, Jalpaiguri. Upon this reference being made, the petitioner herein made an application under Article 226, to this Court, challenging the order of reference and inter alia urging that the order was without jurisdiction as the said I. B. Ganguly was not a workman of the petitioner company, and as such, there could not be an industrial dispute between the company and Sri Ganguly. By my judgment dated 20th February, 1959 a copy of which is annexure "b" to the petition, I upheld this contention, I pointed out that the workmen of a company may raise an industrial dispute in respect of a person who is not a workman, provided that the person regarding whom the dispute was raised, was one, in whose employment, non-employment, terms of employment, or conditions of labour (as the case may be) the workmen of the company have a direct or substantial interest. But the industrial dispute must be between the company and its workmen, and cannot be between the employer and an outsider. The rule was, therefore, made absolute and the order of reference was set aside. I stated however, that the Government would not be prevented from making a proper order of reference between the partie