Scope of discharged workman to invoke the aid of Labour Court.

This is a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution to call for the records in Claim Petition No. 227 of 1958 on the file of the Labour Court, Madurai, and to quash the order dated 19th November, 1958. The second respondent to this petition, Iswaran, was employed as a Traffic Supervisor in the Trichy-Srirangam Transport Co. (Private,) Limited, the petitioner. His services were terminated on 21st December, 1956, under a scheme of retrenchment. Subsequent thereto, there were disputes between the Management and the other workers in regard to the payment of bonus for the years 1955-56 and 1956-57. A settlement was reached before the Conciliation Officer on 29th April, 1958. In pursuance of such settlement, the Management declared an additional bonus of one month’s wages for each of the two years.

Iswaran was however not paid anything by way of bonus though he had worked during those years persumably because he was not in service on the date of the dispute which ended in the settlement referred to above. Feeling aggrieved, he applied to the Labour Court, Madurai, for an order under section 33 (c) (2) of the Industrial Disputes Act for ascertainment of the bonus due to him under the settlement and for a direction to the Management to pay the same. The Labour Court held that Iswaran would be entitled to the additional bonus of one month’s wages for the years 1955-56 and also a bonus proportionate to the period of his service in the following year. The Court passed an order directing the Management to pay a sum of Rs. 189-44 nP. It is the order that is challenged as one beyond the jurisdiction of the Labour Court.

Mr. Marthandam, who appeared for the Management, contended that the jurisdiction of the Labour Court to pass an order in favour of the respondent depended in turn on its jurisdiction to entertain the claim at the instance of the second respondent. According to the learned counsel, the Labour Court being one created by statute for a special purpose, its powers and jurisdiction being defined therein, the person who seeks its assistance for enforcing certain alleged rights should prove strictly that he was one to whom relief was contemplated under the provisions of the Act. It was argued that section 33 (c) (2) under which an application was made to the Labour Court read in the light of the definition of the term “worker” in section 2 (s) of the Act would not cover the case of discharged worker. Section 33 (c) (2) states:

“Where any workman is entitled to receive from the employer any benefit which is capable of being computed in terms of money, the amount at which such benefit should be computed may, subject to any rules that may be made under this Act, be determined by such Labour Court as may be specified in this behalf by the appropriate Government, and the amount so determined may be recovered as provided for in sub-section (1)”.

The term “workman” has been defined in section 2 (s) as:

“any person (including an apprentice) employed in any industry to do any skilled or unskilled manual, supervisory, technical or clerical work for hire or reward, whether the terms of employment be express or implied, and for the purposes of any proceeding under this Act in relation to an industrial dispute, includes any such person who has been dismissed, discharged or retrenched in connection with, or as a consequence of, that dispute or whose dismissal, discharge or retrenchment has led to that dispute..........” (The rest of the section is omitted as unnecessary).

Mr. Marthandam’s argument is that on the terms of the definition of “workman”, a discharged or dismissed employee could not be held to be a workman except in regard to proceedings relating to industrial disputes, i.e., collective disputes, while in all other cases a workman would only mean an employee in actual service. A proceeding under section 33 (c) (2) being one not relating to an industrial dispute but merely an individual dispute, a discharged workman could not it