( 1 ) THE applicant- workman has made a grievance in this application that even though the Industrial Court has passed an award dated 13th September 1999 in Appeal (IC) No. 43 of 1995, in his favour, he is neither reinstated nor paid back wages and, therefore, the respondents be held guilty of having committed wilful contempt of the Court and to punish the respondents as per the provisions of Contempt of Courts Act.

( 2 ) THIS is one of many such matters whereby the concerned workman, instead of executing the award under section 33 (C) of the Industrial Disputes Act, has filed application under section 10 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. This Court entertains such applications in view of different set of decisions in the matter. The questions involved in these applications are : (I) Whether the Labour Court is a Court within the meaning of Contempt of Courts Act ? (II) Whether the contempt proceedings are maintainable when adequate remedy under section 33-C of the Industrial Disputes Act is available ?with a view to decide these questions finally, we sought assistance of all advocates by issuing a notice. In response to the same, the learned advocates appeared as interveners and submitted their view points by inviting our attention to relevant case laws on both the questions.

( 3 ) MR. V. B. PATEL, learned Counsel, after having invited our attention to the provisions of constitution as well as Industrial Disputes Act, submitted that even though the Labour Court/ Industrial Tribunal exercises powers to adjudicate rights of the parties, they are not "courts". In other words, Mr. Patel submitted that the labour courts/industrial tribunals are not courts even though they have trappings of the courts. In the submission of Mr. Patel, they are exercising purely quasi judicial powers under the supervision of the High Court and,therefore,mere supervision by the High Court under Article 227 of the Constitution is not a real test so as to make them "courts" within the meaning of section 10 of the Contempt of Courts Act. Mr. Patel finally submitted that in view of the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of (The) Alahar Cooperative Credit Service Society Vs. Shamlal, 1995 (2) GLH 550 wherein the Supreme Court, in no uncertain terms, has held that the Labour Court constituted under section 7 of the Industrial Disputes Act is not a court subordinate to High Court under section 10 of the Contempt of Courts Act and, therefore, the contempt proceedings for non compliance of the order or award are not maintainable, the point is concluded and, therefore, the present application is required to be rejected.

( 4 ) MR. K. K. SHAH, learned Counsel, as one of the interveners, submitted that the phrase subordinate to it as appearing in section 10 of the Contempt of Courts Act is wide enough to include all courts which are judicially subordinate to High Court even though administrative control over them under Article 235 of the Constitution does not vests in the High Court and under Article 227 of the Constitution, High Court has the power of superintendence over all courts and tribunals through out the territories in relation to which it exercises jurisdiction. Mr. Shah, by inviting our attention to the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of State of Maharashtra Vs. Labour Laws Practitioners Association, AIR 1998 SC 1233, submitted that since the Labour Court judges and the judges of the Industrial Tribunal belong to judicial service, the hierarchy contemplated in the case of labour court judges is the hierarchy of labour court judges and industrial tribunal judges with the industrial tribunal judges holding superior position of district judges, the labour court is held subject to High Courts power of superintendence under Article 227 of the Constitution, it is not correct to contend that the labour court is not a court.

( 5 ) MR. SINHA,learned Counsel for the applicant- workman contended that in view of section