The main legal point established in the judgment is the justification of the petitioner's decision to fix the retirement age at 58 years, supported by valid notices, resolutions, and settlements, and the inapplicability of Section 9(a) of the Industrial Disputes Act to the age of retirement.

JUDGMENT

Suvra Ghosh, J. - The Court: The award impugned dated 17th June, 2016 passed by the Learned 4th Industrial Tribunal, Kolkata, is under challenge in the present writ petition.

2. The contention of the writ petitioner, in a nutshell, is hereunder:-

The petitioner is carrying on business as a distributing agent of daily newspapers, magazines, journals, etc. published by the Bartaman printers and publishers as the sole selling agent of the company. In order to bring its workmen into the fold of gratuity from a consolidated fund with the Life Insurance Corporation of India, the petitioner formulated a master policy on 20th april, 1990 for such restricted purpose wherein the age of retirement is recorded as 65 years. Upon subsequent consideration as per prevailing policies of other establishments with regard to age of retirement of the employees, it was decided that such age be reduced to 58 years and individual contracts were executed between the petitioner and the workmen wherein the age of superannuation was recorded as 58 years, the same being accepted by all the workmen including those involved in the industrial dispute. The employees of the company requested the management to clear their doubts regarding their age of retirement and upon detailed discussion, the company issued three notices on 22nd June, 1993, 30th June, 1993 and 12th June, 1996 stating the superannuation age as 58 years and displayed them on the notice board of the company. The petitioner company formed a trust by executing a deed of trust on 3rd May, 1991 which was subsequently modified by a Deed of Variation dated 25th May, 1991. On request of the petitioner, the LIC issued the master policy for granting benefits to the employees in terms of the Trust Deed and the petitioner agreed to pay premium in lieu of which the LIC would grant benefit of gratuity to each employee upon superannuation. Pursuant to a Board Resolution taken on 20th December, 2006 a Deed of Variation was executed on 2nd January, 2007 which was approved by the Income Tax Department. a bipartite settlement was arrived at between the petitioner and the employees and on 25th October, 2005, it was agreed by all the employees that the retirement age would be 58 years and all the employees including Pradip Kumar Biswas, the writ petitioner herein, who disagreed with the said proposal earlier, put their signatures in the said settlement. a similar memorandum of settlement was also executed in 2009 and 2012 which was signed by all the employees except Pradip Kumar Biswas. However, Sri Biswas superannuated on 4th February, 2012 and accepted his retiral benefits.

3. Thereafter Sri Biswas raised an industrial dispute before the appropriate authority and a reference was made to the Learned 5th Industrial Tribunal, Kolkata on 13th October, 2011 which was taken up for final adjudication by the Learned 4th Industrial Tribunal, Kolkata after the matter was transferred to the said Court. In deciding the dispute, the Learned Tribunal held that the petitioner violated the provision of section 9(a) of the Industrial Disputes act. Primarily relying upon the technical anomaly regarding eight digit phone numbers appearing in the appointment letters, the Tribunal granted an award in favour of the employees holding the retirement age to be 65 years without considering the case in its proper perspective. The approach of the Tribunal was biased and unreasonable and documents submitted by the petitioner were not taken into consideration.

4. The petitioner has prayed for issuance of writ in the nature of mandamus quashing/setting aside the impugned award dated 17th June, 2016 passed by the Learned 4th Industrial Tribunal, Kolkata as well as a writ in the nature of prohibition restraining the respondents from giving effect to the impugned order.

5. Both the parties have submitted written notes of argument in support of their respective contentions.

6. The argument canvassed by learned counsel for the petitioner is as f