The main legal point established in the judgment is the competence of the tribunal to fix pay scales and the acceptance of the impugned award by the petitioner.

( 1 ) THE Petitioner is aggrieved by an Award dated 22nd August 1985 passed by the Industrial Tribunal in ID no. 85 of 1979 (old) and ID No. 305 of 1984 (new ).

( 2 ) THE appropriate Government, through the secretary (Labour) of the Delhi Administration referred the following question for adjudication by the Industrial tribunal:-

"whether the pay scales of the Security Staff upto the rank of the Asstt. Security Inspector need be revised, and, if so, what directions are necessary in this respect?"

( 3 ) BY the impugned Award, it was held that respondent No. 3 (Workmen) are entitled to the pay scales of their counterparts in the Delhi Police. Consequently, an Assistant Security Inspector (ASI) was held entitled to the pay scale of Rs. 425-700, a Security Havaldar was held entitled to the pay scale of Rs. 260-350 and a security Guard was held entitled to the pay scale of rs. 225-308. All these categories of employees of the petitioner were held entitled to their respective pay scales with effect from 1st October 1979, with subsequent increases from time to time.

( 4 ) LEARNED counsel for the parties were heard on 2nd, 8th, 28th, 29th and 30th September, 2004 when judgment was reserved.

( 5 ) LEARNED counsel for the Petitioner made two principal submissions, the first one having different facets and nuances.

( 6 ) IT was submitted that the reference made to the learned Tribunal was incompetent in as much as fixing pay scales of the employees of the Petitioner involved the exercise of a statutory power. In this regard, reference was made to the Delhi Road Transport Authority Act, 1950 (the DRTA Act) and the Delhi Road Transport Authority (Scales of Pay) Regulations, 1950 framed thereunder (the 1950 Regulations); the Road Transport Corporations Act, 1950 (the 1950 Act) read with the Delhi Road Transport laws (Amendment) Act, 1971 (the Amendment Act ). On his turn, learned counsel for the Workmen drew my attention to the Delhi Road Transport Authority (Scales of Pay) regulations, 1992 (the 1992 Regulations ).

( 7 ) AS an alternative to the above submission, it was contended by learned counsel for the Petitioner that if it is held that fixing the pay of the Workmen did not require the exercise of any statutory power, then the learned Tribunal was wrong in ignoring the well-settled considerations of region cum industry and the financial capacity of an employer to pay. It was said that, on the contrary, the learned Tribunal erroneously referred to the pay scales of Delhi Police personnel and even disregarded the fact that the Workmen were getting paid as per the pay scales fixed by the Central Pay commission, from time to time.

( 8 ) THE second contention of learned counsel for the petitioner was that the reference was incompetent because it should have been made by the Central Government, which was the appropriate government under the Industrial disputes Act, 1947 (the Act), and not the Delhi administration.

( 9 ) IN support of his first submission, learned counsel for the Petitioner relied upon Ratnakar vishwanath Joshi vs. Life Insurance Corporation, 1975 I llj 501 to contend that the regulations relating to the pay scales of the Workmen were not in the nature of a contract of service but had the force of law. Therefore, they would not fall within the jurisdiction of the learned Tribunal and would be excluded from it and so the pay scales fixed by regulations could not be varied by it.

( 10 ) SIMILARLY, reference was made to Mangalore university Non-teaching Employees Association vs. Mangalore University, 1988 I LLN 771 wherein it was observed that while

". . . THE Industrial Tribunal has wide powers in matters relating to conditions of service of workmen, in that, it can create new conditions of service or alter existing conditions of service, it can do so, only if the matter is not regulated by law. It has no jurisdiction to deal with matters covered by law, and to make an award directing an employer to regulate the