Point of Law: Labour Law - Offence by companies, etc - Retrenchment - Section 32 every director, manager, Secretary etc. shall be deemed to be guilty of the offences committed under the Act.

JUDGMENT :

Abhijit Gangopadhyay, J.

1. The petitioner had filed an application under Section 33C (2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (hereinafter referred to as the ID Act) on or about 21.05.1996 numbered as Case No. COMP.39/96 which was decided by the First Labour Court, West Bengal on 19th May, 2014. Thus the computation case was kept pending for nearly 18 years. The First Labour Court took this 18 years time to reject the said application.

2. Against such rejection present writ application has been filed. Some relevant dates, as appears from the writ application are given below to understand the facts :

Sl. No. Date/Year Event

1. 1960 The petitioner joined service of a company (M/s. Gladestone Lyall).

2. 23.11.1970 Retrenched from service along with other employees. (His date of retirement, had he been in service, was 31.12.1990).

3. 1971 A dispute was raised and the Government of West Bengal referred it as an Industrial Dispute between the company and their workmen under the ID Act and the matter was heard by 8th Industrial Tribunal.

4. 02.04.1973 The award passed by the Industrial Tribunal was published in the official gazette under Section 17 of the ID Act. The award was in favour of some of the employees including the petitioner.

5. 28.02.1975 The award was challenged by filing a writ application. The Single Bench of this court upheld the award.

6. 17.12.1982 The Division Bench of this Court dismissed the appeal by the company and upheld the order of the Single Bench.

7. 16.04.1984 The Supreme Court dismissed the Special Leave Petition preferred by the company.

8. 23.04.1984 Petitioner wrote to the company for his back wages, and also for allowing him to join pursuant to reinstatement order. Not reinstated by the company.

9. 18.04.1991 The company went into liquidation.

10. 1996 The petitioner filed his claim in Form Q-2 (under the ID Act).

11. 19.05.2014 Petitioner’s application for quantification of claim under Section 33C (2) was dismissed by the Ist Labour Court.

12. 15.07.2014 The present writ application has been filed challenging the order of the Learned First Labour Court dated 19.05.2014.

When the present writ application was filed the age of the petitioner was 81 years. Now he is 90 years of age. The petitioner is fighting the legal battle for last 50 years or so.

3. From the award relating to the retrenchment as was notified in the Calcutta Gazette dated 02.04.1973 (annexure P-1 of the writ application) inter alia, the following is found;

“I have thought it fit that each of the 33 retrenched employees should get 25 per cent of their back wages from the dates of their retrenchment up till now....they are also entitled to get reinstatement”.

The award of the 8th Industrial Tribunal was neither interfered with by the Writ Court nor by the Appeal Court (in Mandamus Appeal) and nor by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court only made one observation while dismissing the Special Leave Petition (against the appeal court’s judgment and order) filed by the company, which is as follows:

“The Special Leave Petition is dismissed with the observation that those employees who have already attained the age of superannuation, i.e. 58 years shall be entitled only to the monetary benefits including the retirement benefits on the date of their retirement and not reinstatement”.

4. The petitioner was to retire on 31.12.1990 and therefore, he was not affected by the observation of the Hon’ble Supreme Court. Therefore, so far as the petitioner is concerned his 25% back wages till the date of the award (the award said “back wages from the date of their retrenchment up till now”) and his right to be reinstated was confirmed up to Supreme Court. There cannot be any dispute that reinstatement signifies payment of full monthly wages.

5. Therefore, the company was liable to do the following after the award:

(i) To pay 25% of the back wages from the date of retrenchment to the date of the award.

(ii) To reinstate the petitioner.

This order of reinstatement enti