The validity of an award is not a relevant consideration in disposing of an application under Section 17B of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

1. The short question involved in the present application relates to whether and if so, to what extent, the subject matter of challenge in the writ petition can be allowed to be taken as a defence in a proceeding under Section 17B of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (‘the Act’ for short). The writ petitioner, i.e., the opposite party herein, challenged the award dated January 2, 2004 passed by the learned Judge of the Second Labour Court in Case No. 18 of 2003 as well as Order No. 16 dated January 30, 2004 rejecting the application of review by the writ petitioner. The learned judge of the labour court passed an award in favour of the present applicant directing the writ petitioner to reinstate him service with full back wages.

2. Challenging the same the petitioner filed the present writ petition which is still pending. The present applicant has taken out an application under Section 17B of the Act for a direction upon the writ petitioner to pay him full wages last drawn by him and further directing them to pay other statutory and admissible dues in terms of the award impugned.

3. The writ petitioners opposed this application by filing an affidavit-in-opposition, affirmed by the Director of the petitioner’s company. The preliminary objection taken by the writ petitioners was that the preconditions for maintaining an application under Section 17B of the Act having not been fulfilled the application was clearly unsustainable. The applicant, the writ petitioners alleged, was a personal driver of a privately owned car of late Dr. Amiya Roychowdhury who was the father of the petitioner no. 2. Therefore, he could not have raised any industrial dispute. The applicant was never employed by the company at all and as such, the question of making payment of monthly salary to the applicant does not arise.

4. The applicant filed a supplementary affidavit in connection with the said application. To the said application a letter of authority executed in his favour was only annexed.

5. The writ petitioners filed an affidavit-in-opposition to the supplementary affidavit reiterating their basic objection to the application. Over and above that it was alleged that the late Dr. Amiya Kumar Roychowdhury, who was the father of the writ petitioner no. 2. Late Dr. Roychowdhury had no connection with the company. The respondent no. 3 never served the company nor was the car owned by Dr. Roychowdhury ever used for the business of the petitioner No. 1 Company. Dr. Roychowdhury died on January 2, 1998, his widow had no requirement even for part time use of the car and, therefore, she requested the applicant to leave. The applicant left on his own in January 2001.

6. It has been the stand of the writ petitioners that there was no employer-employee relationship between the applicant and the petitioner No. 1 Company. The writ petitioner further asserted that the letter annexed to the supplementary affidavit did not establish any employer-employee relationship between the petitioner and the respondent No. 3. On the contrary, it is only a letter of authorization issued by the widow of Late Dr. Amiya Kumar Roychowdhury.

7. It may be mentioned that when this application came up for hearing earlier a learned Single Judge of the Court by an Order dated August 3, 2012 directed the applicant to affirm a supplementary affidavit for the purpose of disclosing the appointment letter and other documents from which he might have to show that he received salary from the petitioner from time to time. The learned Single Judge further observed that His Lordship was not inclined to take up the application under Section 17B of the Act without getting a definite proof that he was employed by and got salary from the writ petitioner from time to time. It was pursuant to this order that the applicant filed the supplementary affidavit as mentioned above.

8. The learned advocate for the writ petitioners in his submissions reiterated the stand taken by them in their respective a