The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of the competence of the Registrar under S.69 of the Kerala Co-operative Societies Act, 1969 and the nature of disputes that can be settled by an Industrial Tribunal or Labour Court.

1. The question is whether the Labour Court, the 2nd respondent to this petition, has jurisdiction to pass the award Ext. P5 relating to the dismissal of the 4th respondent, one P. P. Chacko, from the services of the petitioner-Co-operative Society. By Ext. P5 award, the 2nd respondent has directed reinstatement of the 4th respondent as an employee of the petitioner-Society. Without going into the merits of the decision in Ext. P5 excepting in referring to the incompetency of the President of the petitioner-Society in giving consent to the reinstatement of the 4th respondent, counsel urged that the dispute about the correctness or otherwise of the dismissal of the 4th respondent from the services of the petitioner-Society is a matter falling within S.69 of the Kerala Co-operative Societies Act, 1969 (hereinafter called the Act) that the dispute is one falling within the definition of that term in S.2(i) of the Act and that the Registrar alone was competent to decide it. The Act was passed with the assent of the President after the enactment of the industrial Disputes Act, 1947. Therefore, it was submitted that the provisions of the Act must prevail. We are therefore asked to set aside Ext. P5 award as having been passed without jurisdiction.

2. Counsel is well supported in his contention that if the subject-matter of the dispute before the 2nd respondent is one falling within the term ' dispute' as defined in S.2 (i) and within S.69 of the Act and therefore within the competence of the Registrar to decide, this provision must prevail over the provisions in the Industrial disputes Act which provides for the settlement of disputes such as that are referrable to the Industrial Tribunals or Labour Courts. It is unnecessary to cite authorities for this proposition, but we may as well refer to a passage from the decision of the Supreme Court in Co-operative Central Bank Ltd. and others etc. v. Additional Industrial Tribunal, Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad and others etc. reported in AIR. 1970 SC. 245:

"The general proposition urged that the jurisdiction of the Industrial Tribunal under the Industrial Disputes Act will be barred if the disputes in question can be competently decided by the Registrar under S.61 of the Act is, therefore, correct and has to be accepted."

3. The question for decision is whether the dispute that has been decided by the 2nd respondent by Ext. P5 award is a dispute that can competently be resolved by the Registrar functioning under S.69 of the Act. For deciding this question, it is necessary to understand the scope and nature of the disputes that can be settled by an Industrial Tribunal or Labour Court We must, in their connection, refer to a passage from the decision of the Privy Council in The Labour Relations Board of Saskatchewan v. John East Iron Works Ltd. reported in AIR. 1949 P. C. 129. The question therein was whether the provisions in the British North America Act, 1867, should be complied with in appointing the members of the Labour Relations Board under the Trade Union Act, 1944. This question turned on the further question whether the Labour Relations Board could be termed a District and County Court. The members of the Judicial Committee, considered the scope and functions of the Labour Relations Board and we think that two paragraphs in the judgment are relevant. We shall extract those paragraphs:

"26. It is a truism that the conception of the judicial function is inseparably bound up with the idea of a suit between parties, whether between Crown and subject or between subject and subject, and that it is the duty of the Court to decide the issue between those parties, with whom alone it rests to initiate or defend or compromise the proceedings. Here at once a striking departure from the traditional conception of a Court may be seen in the functions of the appellant Board. For, as the Act contemplates and the Rules made under it prescribe, any trade union, any employer, any employers' assoc