Hon’ble Tarun Agarwala, J.—Respondent’s No. 1 father died-in-harness and, accordingly, the respondent No. 1 was appointed on compassionate ground as a driver on a permanent vacant post. Instead of paying the regular wages of a driver, the workman was being paid a fixed salary. The workman raised a demand for the payment of regular salary which was not considered by the employers. Consequently, he filed an application under Section 33-C(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act and, the Labour Court, after considering the matter, awarded a sum of Rs. 55,102.88 towards the difference of wages. A review application was filed by the employer which was also rejected and eventually when a recovery certificate was issued, the employers, after paying the said amount to the workman also terminated his services on 2.7.1997. This led to an Industrial Dispute which was referred to the Labour Court under Section 4-K of the Act for adjudication. The terms of the reference order was whether the employers were justified in not giving the workman the wages and other benefits on the post of driver w.e.f. 12.6.1997 and whether the employers were justified in terminating the services of the workman w.e.f. 2.7.1997.

2. The petitioner is a Co-operative Society and submitted before the Labour Court that it had no jurisdiction to decide the dispute since the provisions of U.P. Industrial Disputes Act was not applicable to a Cooperative Society. The employees of a Cooperative Society were governed by the provisions of U.P. Cooperative Societies Act. 1965. which is a complete code in itself and that, the provisions of U.P. Industrial Disputes Act was not applicable to the Cooperative Society. The Labour Court in its award specifically overruled objection of the petitioner relying upon a decision of this Court in Agra District Cooperative Bank Limited, Agra v. Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Agra, 1998(80) FLR 40? in which it was held that in view of Section 135 of the U.P. Cooperative Societies Act, the provisions of the U.P. Industrial Disputes Act was applicable in respect of a dispute arising out of Cooperative Societies Act relating to its employees. In the present case, the Labour Court, on merits, found that the workman was working as a driver in a permanent capacity on a permanent post, but was only being paid the wages of a daily rated worker and that the employers had adopted an unfair labour practice in not providing the workman the regular wages which the workman was entitled to. The Labour Court further found that since the claim of the workman under Section 33-C(2) was allowed, the employers illegally terminated the services of the workman without complying with the provisions of Section 6N of the U.P. Industrial Disputes Act inspite of the workman having worked for more than 240 days in a calender year .

3. The petitioner, being aggrieved by the aforesaid award, has filed the instant writ petition. Heard Sri Dhananjay Awasthi, the learned Counsel for the petitioner and Sri Avanish Misra, the learned Counsel for the respondent-workman.

4. The learned Counsel for the petitioner has only urged that the petitioner is a Cooperative Society and is governed by the provisions of the Cooperative Societies Act, 1965. The service conditions of the employees of the petitioner are governed by the U.P. Cooperative Societies Employees Service Regulations 1975 which has been framed under Section 122 of the U.P. Cooperative Societies Act. 1965, which has a full fledged mechanism to consider and redress the grievance of an employee of a Cooperative Society. The learned Counsel for the petitioner submitted that the provisions of U.P. Industrial Disputes Act are not applicable to the employees of the petitioner’s Society and therefore, the State Government had committed an error in referring the dispute for adjudication before the Labour Court. Consequently, the award of the Labour Court was void and was liable to be quashed. In support of his submission, the