This is a petition by the accused to quash the criminal proceedings in C.C. No. 4097 of 1950 on the file of the Third Presidency Magistrate, Egmore.

The above proceedings arise out of a charge sheet filed by the police against the petitioner who is the Managing Director of Prabhat Talkies, Broadway, Madras. The circumstances under which the police filed the charge sheet are these. On a report by the Commissioner of Labour that an Industrial Dispute had arisen between the workers and the management of the Cinema Talkies in the City of Madras and that an amicable settlement could not be arrived at the Government by G.O. No. 2227, dated the 20th May, 1947, referred the dispute to the Industrial Tribunal, Madras, for adjudication under section 7 (1) and (2), read with section 10 (1) (c) of the Industrial Disputes Act. The Tribunal passed an award on 15th December, 1947, and the Government by its G.O.No. 677, dated 13th February, 1948, declared the said award shall come into operation on 25th February, 1948, and shall remain in force for a period of one year. It would therefore have normally expired on 24th February, 1949.

In the meantime in respect of an award made by the Tribunal constituted for the purpose on a reference made by the Government in an industrial dispute alleged to have arisen between the workers and the managements of certain Engineering firms and type foundries, on application made by one of the firms (Kutty and Rao), Subba Rao, J., held that a general notification of this kind without specification of either the disputes or the firms in which the disputes have arisen is not competent. This decision was affirmed on appeal by a Bench of this Court in Ramayya Pantulu v. Kutty and Rao (Engineers) Ltd.1, where Horwill and Rajagopalan, JJ., held,

“The reference made by the Government was not competent because of the generality of the application of the notification”.

It may be stated that the reference in this case also is of such general nature that the award will fall within the scope of the decision in the above case.

As a result of the above decision, the Legislature of the State (then Province) amended the Industrial Disputes Act of 1947 by Act XII of 1949. The State had power to amend the Central Act as the subject was in the Concurrent List of the Government of India Act and the assent of the Governor-General was obtained. Section 5 of the Act declared that all awards made.......whether before or after such commencement by such tribunal shall be deemed to be valid. Section 6 of the Act declared that,

“All awards passed by Industrial Tribunals and mentioned in the schedule hereto which could not be enforced on account of the proceedings before the High Court, shall be current and valid for a further period of one year from the commencement of this Act”.

The award in this dispute between the management and the workers of Cinema theatres is mentioned in the schedule referred to above.

On the authority of the Government the police have now filed a charge sheet dated the 24th April, 1950, against the petitioner herein for an offence under section 29 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The allegation is that the petitioner has not implemented the provisions of the award relating to payment of wages and dearness allowance with retrospective effect from 20th May, 1947 and 1st January, 1948. It is not disputed that there has been implementation of the award from 25th February, 1948, and the increment was given from 1st March, 1949; but the offence consists in non-implementation in terms of the provisions of the award. The further allegation is that as per the award no chief ticket examiner and advance booking clerk have been appointed.

In this petition to quash the proceedings, several contentions have been raised by Mr. Jayarama Aiyar for the petitioner. One of the contentions is that before the amendment which came into effect on 14th June, 1949, the failure to implement the award would not be an offence as the award under t

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