The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation and application of S.19(3) and S.19(6) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, in determining the validity of the Industrial Tribunal's order.

1. The petitioner in this petition under Art.226 of the Constitution is the Indian Aluminium Company Limited, Alwaye, and the two respondents are the workmen of the said Company represented by the Aluminium Factory Workers' Union, Alwaye, and the Industrial Tribunal, Trivandrum.

2. The petition questions the validity of Ex. P2, an order of the Industrial Tribunal, Trivandrum, dated 25-4-1957. The order overruled the contentions of the petitioner regarding the maintainability of the reference and posted the case for evidence on the issue referred for adjudication, namely

"Is the discharge of Sri M. P. Mathai justifiable? If not, to what relief is he entitled?"

3. The preliminary objections were:

(1) that Mathai was not a workman as defined in the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947;

(2) that Exs. P3 and P4, the awards of the Industrial Tribunal, Ernakulam, in adjudication Nos. 4 and 5 of 1951, precluded the Union from contending that he was a workman within the meaning of that definition; and

(3) that in any view of the matter there can be no reference of the issue for adjudication except after the termination of the awards, Exts. P3 and P4, as contemplated by subsection (6) of S.19 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

4. Sub-section (3) of S.19 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, (omitting the two provisos thereto) reads as follows:

"An award shall, subject to the provisions of this section, remain in operation (or a period of one year";

and sub-section (6):

"Notwithstanding the expiry of the period of operation under sub-section (3), the award shall continue to be binding on the parties until a period of two months has elapsed from the date on which notice is given by any party bound by the award to the other party or parties intimating its intention to terminate the award.".

It is agreed that no notice as contemplated by sub-section (6) of S.19 has been given in respect of Exts. P3 and P4. The contention of the Union is not that the awards have been so terminated; but that the terms of Exts. P3 and P4 dispense with the necessity for any notice of termination.

5. Ex. P4 is an award in a dispute between the petitioner and the 1st respondent and Ex. P3, an award in a dispute between the petitioner and their workmen represented by the Indian Aluminium Factory Staff Association, Alwaye. In Ext. P4 it is stated:

"The principle that supervisors and other employees in the Company above their grade are not workmen within the meaning of the Industrial Disputes Act 1947 is accepted and accordingly the Aluminium Factory Workers' Union undertakes to exclude all such employees from their membership";

and in Ex. P3:

The principle that supervisors and other employees in the Company above their grade are not workmen within the meaning of the Industrial Disputes Acts of 1947 is accepted and accordingly, the Indian Aluminium Factory Staff Association undertakes forthwith to exclude all such employees from their membership and inform the fact to the employees in writing"

6. It is not disputed that on the "principle"' accepted in Exts. P3 and P4, Mathai will not be a "workman" within the meaning of that expression as defined in the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The definition at the time of Mathai's discharge and when the awards were passed was in the following terms:

"Workman" means any person employed (including an apprentice) in any industry to do any skilled or unskilled, manual or clerical work for hire or reward and includes, for the purposes of any proceedings under this Act in relation to an industrial dispute, a workman discharged during that dispute, but does not include any person employed in the naval, military or air service of the Government."

7. It is true that the awards, Exts. P3 and P4, embody agreements reached by the parties but that does not mean that they are anything less or other than awards under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, the operation of which have to be determined in accordance with the provisions of S.19 of that Act