The Schedule to the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, includes the matter of retirement age and standing orders can be given retrospective effect.

ORDER :- In 1927, the Management of the "Hindu" framed various rules defining some of the terms and conditions of service of their employees. One of these was contained in R. 45, which ran :

"Every employee shall ordinarily retire from service on his completing the age of 58 years or thirty years of unbroken service, whichever is earlier."

When the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, came into force, the management submitted the rules they had drawn up for certification and on 4th May, 1949, the Labour Commissioner, who is the certifying officer under the Act, certified the rules and they became "standing orders". In 1957, the Management considered it desirable to make certain minor changes in these standing orders and applied for their modification in certain respects.

The National Press Employees Union took advantage of this occasion and moved the certifying officer to amend para 45 so as to read as follows :

"Every employee shall retire on attaining the age of 58 which shall be fixed as the age of superannuation."

If this amendment became effective, the position would be that employees who had put in 30 years of continuous unbroken service, but who had not attained the age of 58 years, could remain in service till they became 58 years old.

The Management objected to the modification, but their objections were overruled and the certifying officer certified the amendment as prayed for by the National Press Employees Union. The Management of the "Hindu" preferred an appeal under S. 6(1) of the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, to the Labour Court, Madras; but that appeal failed. The Management has, therefore, come to this Court for the issue of an appropriate writ to quash the order of the authorities below, so far as it relates to the amendment of Standing Order 45.

2. The first contention which Mr. Ramamurthi Aiyar, the learned counsel for the petitioner, raised was this. The Schedule to the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act enumerates all the matters in respect of which the statute requires that the provision should be made in Standing Orders. The matter for which provision was made in Standing Order 45, is not such a matter; it is outside the scope of the Schedule. Standing Order 45 provides for the retirement of an employee who has attained the age of 58 years or who has put in an unbroken service of 30 years. Item, 8 of the Schedule no doubt reads :

"Termination of employment, and the notice thereof to be given by employer and workmen." If the words used in this item and only been "termination of employment" it might have been permissible to say that retirement on attaining a certain age or on completing a certain number of years of service is also comprised in it. But then, in the Schedule, the expression "termination of employment" does not stand alone; it is followed by the words "and the notice thereof to be given by employer and workmen". Words must be always understood in the context in which they are placed, and regard being had to the context and also to the collocation of the words, the more appropriate way of reading this item is by taking all the words in it together.

If we do that it will be appreciated that the termination referred to in item 8 is the termination brought about by the issue of a notice by one side or other. Mr. Ramamurthi Aiyar attempted to reinforce this reasoning by referring to the Model Standing Orders framed under the Act. Paragraph 13 of these model Standing Orders bears the heading "termination of employment" and it then proceeds to say that for terminating the employment of a permanent workman, one months notice shall be given in certain cases and two weeks notice in certain other cases.

Sub-paragraph (2) of para 13 provides that no temporary workman shall be entitled to any notice or pay in lieu thereof if his services are terminated. The language of this paragraph suggests, Mr. Ramamurthi Aiyar said, that the termination of employment envisaged by