Hon’ble Tarun Agarwala, J.—By means of this writ petition, the petitioner has challenged the validity and legality of the award passed by the Industrial Tribunal directing the petitioner to reinstate the workman with full back wages and other consequential benefits including interest on unpaid wages and cost of Rs. 5000/-. For facility and convenience, the petitioner is called the “management” and the respondent is called the “workman”.

2. The petitioner is one of the 5 units of M/s Sri Baidyanath Ayurvedh Bhawan Ltd., which is a Limited Company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956, having its Head Office at Kolkata. The petitioner is engaged in the business of manufacture and sale of Ayurved medicines. The present dispute relates to the Naini unit of the petitioner Company. It is alleged, that all the units are independently managed and administered separately and that there is no inter unit transfer and, it is only in exceptional circumstances that an employee is sent on a deputation to another unit, as per the requisite requirement of work.

3. It is alleged that the workman respondent No. 2 was appointed by the Head Office in Kolkata on 19.4.1991 as a Maintenance Engineer, but was mainly appointed to do the liaison work of the Company. The petitioner was transferred by the Head Office to the Naini unit in the year 1993 and, since then, was working at the Naini unit. In the year 1999, the management transferred the workman from Naini unit to Kolkata unit, as he was no longer required by the Naini unit. It is alleged that the workman reported for work at the Kolkata unit but was not allowed to join on the ground that there was no vacancy on the post of Maintenance Engineer at Kolkata nor was there any requirement of work and accordingly the workman was directed to report back to the Naini unit. The workman, accordingly reported back at the Naini unit but was not allowed to join at the Naini unit. This led to a dispute and upon the failure of the conciliation proceedings, the Deputy Labour Commissioner, while exercising the powers under Section 4-K of the U.P. Industrial Disputes Act, referred the matter for adjudication before the Industrial Tribunal. The terms of the reference order was whether the employer was justified in not taking work from the workman w.e.f. 20.1.2000 ? If not, to what relief was the workman entitled to ?

4. Before the Tribunal, the workman filed his written statement contending that he was initially appointed as a Maintenance Engineer in the year 1991 at Kolkata and was transferred to the Naini unit in 1993 and that, in December 1999, he was again transferred to the Kolkata unit of the Company. The workman contended that he complied with the transfer order and reported to the Kolkata unit and requested the management to allow him to join his duties but the Kolkata unit refused to comply with the transfer order and instructed the workman that since there was no vacancy in the Kolkata unit and that the management was not in a position to allow the workman to join his duties at Kolkata, the management of the Kolkata unit directed the workman to go back to the Naini unit and, in this regard, a fax message as well as a telephonic message was sent to the Naini unit. It is alleged that the workman reported back to the Naini unit and requested the management of the Naini unit to permit him to join his duties at Allahabad. The workman contended that the Naini unit did not allow the workman to report and submitted that he should approach the Kolkata unit for the redressal of his grievance.

5. The petitioner filed a rejoinder affidavit to the written statement of the workman and contended that the order of reference was bad in law and that the Deputy Labour Commissioner had no jurisdiction to refer the dispute to the Industrial Tribunal, inasmuch as, no cause of action arose in the State of U.P. and, therefore, the authority had no power to refer any dispute under the U.P. Industrial Disputes Act. It wa