This is an appeal by the State against the acquittal of the respondents by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Sankari. The appeal is now confined only to accused 1, 2, 4, 5, 8 and 9, of whom the first accused is the Mettur Industries, the second accused is the Chairman of the Board of Directors and the rest are all Directors.

One A. R. Varma, a Weaving Production Clerk in the Mettur Industries, was dismissed by its then Manager on the ground that he was found sleeping during the might shift. The said Varma preferred a complaint to the Industrial Tribunal, Coimbatore, and the Tribunal, after enquiry, passed an award directing the reinstatement of the dismissed clerk. The said award was published in the Fort St. George Gazette on 10th April, 1957.

Under section 17-A of the Industrial Disputes Act, the award became enforceable on the expiry of 30 days from the date of its publication i.e., it became enforceable on 9th May, 1957. But even on 9th May, 1957, the dismissed servant was not reinstated. P.W. 2, the General Secretary of the National Textile Employees Union, at Mettur, which is a registered one, wrote a letter to the Manager, Mettur Industries, asking him to reinstate the