Under Section 33A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, the Labour Court must consider both the contravention of Section 33 and the merits of the dismissal before ordering reinstatement.

Gosain, J.

1. The Punjab Government by their notification No. 1200-C Lab-57/219771, dated 25 September 1957, referred to the Labour Court, Amritsar, an industrial dispute between the Oriental textile Finishing Mills, Chheharta, on the one hand and the workers of the said mills on the other. During the pendency of the dispute the management of the Mills dismissed an employee of theirs, Krishan Lal, respondent

2. The aforesaid employee filed a complaint in the labour court under Section 33A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 , claiming that he had been wrongfully dismissed, without previous permission of the labour court. By its award dated 27 November 1957, published in the Punjab Government Gazette, dated 13 December 1957, the labour court held that the complainant, Krishan Lal, would be deemed to have never been dismissed or discharged and would be entitled to full wages for the period for which he was not given any work. The management of the mills have come up to this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India and have prayed for the Issuance of an appropriate writ quashing the said award.

3. The main allegation of the petitioners is that the labour court was bound to go into the merits of the dismissal and could not pass an order of reinstatement of the dismissed employee simply on the ground that the employee had been dismissed without previous permission of the labour court or that he had not been paid one months wage as required by proviso to Sub-section (2) of Section 33 of the said Act. No one represented the Punjab State before me and the petition was opposed only by Krishan Lal, respondent 3.

4. Section 33A of the Industrial Disputes Act provides:

Where an employer contravenes the provisions of Section 33 during the pendency of proceedings before a (labour court, tribunal or National Tribunal) any employee aggrieved by such contravention may make a complaint in writing in the prescribed manner to such (labour court, tribunal or National Tribunal) and on receipt of such complaint that (labour court, tribunal or National Tribunal) shall adjudicate upon the complaint as if it were a dispute referred to or pending before it, in accordance with the provisions of this Act and shall submit its award to the appropriate Government and the provisions of this Act shall apply accordingly.

5. The complaint filed under this section has to be adjudicated upon by the tribunal or labour court as if it were a dispute referred to or pending before it, in accordance with the provisiona of this Act. It is not in my opinion sufficient for the labour court or tribunal to quash the dismissal under this section on the short ground that the dismissal has been made contrary to the provisions of Section 33. When a complaint under Section 33A is made, the labour court or tribunal is bound to go into two matters, namely :

(1) whether the dismissal has been made contrary to the provisions of Section 33 of the Act; and

(2) whether the dismissal is unjustified on its merits.

6. It appears that the object of Section 33A is to avoid multiplicity of proceedings. Instead Of Government making an independent reference and calling upon the tribunal to adjudicate upon that reference, a mere summary procedure is provided by which the workman himself, if he objected to the dismissal, can go to the tribunal and ask the tribunal to adjudicate upon the depute between himself and his employer. The fact that the legislature treats the complaint as if it were a dispute referred to or pending before it, goes to show that the jurisdiction of the tribunal is not limited merely to consider the question of the contravention of Section 33 but to decide on the substantive dispute between the employer and the workman with regard to the dismissal of the workman. When a workman is dismissed in contravention of Section 33 of the Industrial Disputes Act, he has two remedies, namely :

(1) to invoke the provisions of Section 31 of the Act and to take proceed