Meaning of the expression workmen concerned in the appeal.

These applications filed under Article 226 of the Constitution for the issue of writs of certiorari to set aside the orders of the Chairman, Central Government Industrial Tribunal, Madras, raise an identical question for consideration and they can be disposed of by a common order.

The petitioner is the same in both the petitions, the Management of Newtone Studios, Ltd., Madras. On 7th May, 1955, the Management dismissed from service Ethirajulu, one of their workmen. On 20th June, 1955, the Management ordered the retrenchment of twenty workers including respondents 1 to 6 in W.P. No. 551 of 1956. The workmen complained that the termination of their services was in contravention of section 22 of the Industrial Disputes (Appellate Tribunal) Act, 1950 (Act XLVIII of 1950) and they preferred applications under section 23 of the Act which were eventually disposed of by the Chairman, Central Government Industrial Tribunal, Madras. The Tribunal upheld the contentions of the workmen and ordered their reinstatement. In W.P. No. 550 of 1956 the petitioner sought to avoid the order of the Tribunal directing the reinstatement of Ethirajulu, and in W.P. No. 551 of 1956 the relief sought was to set aside the order of the Tribunal directing the reinstatement of respondents 1 to 6. It should be convenient to refer to those seven workmen in the rest of this judgment as the respondents.

The only ground on which the validity of the orders of the Tribunal was challenged was that the respondents, who had applied to the Tribunal under section 23 of Act XLVIII of 1950, were not workmen concerned in the appeal then pending before the Appellate Tribunal, and that in the absence of contravention of section 22 of the Act, the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to grant any relief to the respondents.

It should be noted even at the outset that this objection to the jurisdiction of the Tribunal does not appear to have been preferred at any stage of the proceedings before the Tribunal itself. The real defence then was that the Management was not aware that an appeal had been preferred against the award of the Industrial Tribunal. Whether there was a contravention of section 22 of Act XLVIII of 1950 was a question which the Tribunal was bound to decide if that had been put in issue before it. The submission of the petitioner to the jurisdiction of the Tribunal on the assumption mistaken or otherwise, that there had been violation of section 22 of the Act by the employer should, under normal circumstances, have sufficed to bar an investigation of the plea now put forward by the petitioner in its applications under Article 226 of the Constitution for the issue of writs of certiorari. I am not, however, resting my decision on that ground. The respondents did not put forward such a specific plea either.

It should be taken as well-settled now that only a contravention of section 22 of Act XLVIII of 1950 gives the workmen affected a right to apply under section 23 of the Act. In Automobile Products of India, Ltd. v. Rukmaji Bala 1 , the Supreme Court pointed out:

“A cursory perusal of section 33-A of the 1947 Act (The Industrial Disputes Act) as well as section 23 of the 1950 Act (Act XLVIII of 1950) will at once show that it is the contravention by the employer of the provisions of section 33 in the first case and of section 22 in the second case that gives rise to a cause of action in favour of the workmen to approach and move the respective authority named in the section and this contravention is the condition precedent to the exercise by the authority concerned of the additional jurisdiction and powers conferred on it by the sections. The authority referred to in the sections is, as we have seen, a Court of limited jurisdiction and must accordingly be strictly confined to the exercise of the functions and powers actually conferred on it by the Act which constituted it” .

Section 22 of the Act XLVIII of 1950 runs:

“During the period of 30 days allowed for the filing of