Point of Law: writ petitions continue to be entertained by this court leading to avoidable procrastination of the main proceedings before the Labour Court/Industrial Tribunals.

JUDGMENT :

A.K.Jayasankaran Nambiar, J.

This Writ Appeal has been preferred by the Chelamattom Sree Krishna Swami Devaswom Trust, aggrieved by the judgment dated 28.02.2021 of the learned Single Judge in WP(C).No.2029 of 2021.

2. The brief facts necessary for the disposal of this Writ Appeal are as follows: The appellant/writ petitioner approached this Court through the Writ Petition aforementioned impugning Ext.P22 preliminary order of the Labour Court, Ernakulam that found that the enquiry report dated 10.08.2012, on the basis of which the management had proceeded against the delinquent workman, was vitiated on account of non-compliance with the rules of natural justice. Although in the said order, liberty to adduce fresh evidence to substantiate the charges against the workman before the Labour Court was not expressly reserved, we are told that the Labour Court was not averse to permitting the petitioner to adduce fresh evidence to substantiate the charges against the workman if it chose to do so, based on the liberty sought for the same in the written statement filed by them. As already noticed, it was before resorting to that course of action that the petitioner approached this Court through the Writ Petition aforementioned impugning the said preliminary order of the Labour Court.

3. Under normal circumstances, such Writ Petitions against preliminary orders of the Labour Court would not ordinarily be entertained by this Court in proceedings under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India. The settled view in this regard is contained in the declaration of law by the Supreme Court in Cooper Engineering Limited v. P.P.Mundhe [AIR 1975 Supreme Court 1900] and D.P.Maheshwari v. Delhi Admn. And Others [1983 KHC 514]. In the latter decision, the Supreme Court has clearly stated the High Courts in exercise of the jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, should not stop proceedings before the Industrial Tribunal so that a preliminary issue may be decided by them. As noticed by this Court in the judgment reported in Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences v. Labour Court [2017 (4) KLT 1040], the rationale for the said decision appears to be the finding that neither the jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India nor the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court under Article 136 should be allowed to be exploited by those who can well afford to wait, to the detriment of those who can ill afford to wait, by dragging the latter from Court to Court for adjudication of peripheral issues, avoiding a decision on issues more vital to them. In the last mentioned case, this Court also distinguished a Division Bench decision of this Court in St.Thomas Missions Hospital v. State of Kerala and another [2007 (1) KHC 583] by finding that the latter was a case where the management had already bound itself to the enquiry that was conducted by them and had not reserved a right to hold de novo proceedings in the event of a finding by the Labour Court that the enquiry conducted by it was vitiated in any manner.

4. We have deemed it necessary to refer to the above settled position of law only because we find that notwithstanding the same, writ petitions continue to be entertained by this court leading to avoidable procrastination of the main proceedings before the Labour Court/Industrial Tribunals. The Writ Petition preferred by the appellant herein ought not to have been entertained by this Court. Rather, the appellant ought to have been relegated to the Labour Court for culmination of the proceedings before that Court and with liberty to challenge the preliminary order, if required, along with the final award, if it was against the appellant. On the contrary, the learned single judge in the instant case, while finding the action of the writ petitioner management unfair in that it had chosen to challenge the preliminary order of the labour court, proceeded to dismiss the writ petition with costs to the res