An inordinately procrastinated delay without a tangible explanation renders an industrial dispute stale and unreferable, and the authorized officer of the appropriate government has the jurisdictional power to decline to make a reference in such cases.

Sureshwar Thakur, Judge. (Oral):

1. The petitioner stands aggrieved by Annexure P-1 whereby the Deputy Labour Commissioner, H.P. refused to refer for adjudication to the Labour Court-cum- Industrial Tribunal (hereinafter referred to in short as ‘the Tribunal’) concerned the industrial dispute raised by the petitioner herein/workman qua the factum of his having stood illegally retrenched or disengaged from service by his employer. The Industrial dispute as reared or engendered by the petitioner herein/workman qua his services standing illegally retrenched besides dispensed with by his employer stood nursed by him after an inordinately procrastinated delay of 9 years. The Deputy Labour Commissioner, H.P. in refusing under annexure P-1 to make a reference for an adjudication by the Tribunal concerned upon the industrial dispute raised by the workman/petitioner herein qua his illegal disengagement/retrenchment from service by his employer had therein constituted the reason of its imprompt raising having sequelled its becoming stale. His construing of the industrial dispute raised by the petitioner/workman qua the latter’s purported illegal dispensing of services by his employer being stale hence unreferable for adjudication to the Tribunal concerned stood anvilled upon a decision of this Court rendered in CWP No. 398 of 2001 which stood reiterated by a Full Bench decision of this Court in CWP No. 1486 of 2007.

2. Given the impugned order rendered by the Deputy Labour Commissioner, H.P. declining to make a reference to the Tribunal concerned for an adjudication thereupon by the latter upon the industrial dispute raised by the workman qua his illegal retrenchment from service by his employer standing bed rocked upon decisions of this Court as stand recorded in annexure P-1, it is imperative to at the outset extract the apposite issue whereon an answer was purveyed by this Court in its rendition recorded in Civil Writ Petition No. 1486 of 2007. The issue which stood formulated by this Court whereon an answer thereto stood purveyed by it stands extracted hereinafter.

“where the appropriate Government is of opinion that any industrial dispute exists or is apprehended, it may at any time, by order in writing, refer the …….”

3. On an incisive consideration of a catena of decisions of the Hon’ble Apex Court upon the afore extracted factum probandum this Court had culled therefrom the legal proposition of though their being no statutorily engrafted rigid prescription of any inflexible period of limitation within which a workman is enjoined to raise an industrial dispute comprising his grievances against his employer nor as a corollary the authorized officer of the appropriate Government being empowered to decline to make a reference comprising the industrial dispute raised by the workman to the Tribunal concerned for an adjudication thereupon by the latter unless the inordinately procrastinated delay on the part of the workman to raise it without any tangible or sound explanation emanating from or adduced by the workman before the competent officer of the appropriate Government (Deputy Labour Commissioner) renders it hence to be inevitably construable to have faded, its being infected with the vice of staleness arising from its imprompt raising entailing its rejection by the competent authority. The authorized officer of the appropriate government when exercising powers to make or decline to make a reference to the Tribunal concerned of the industrial dispute reared by the employee against his employer is jurisdictionally empowered to conclude from its unexplained inordinately procrastinated imprompt raising, of its hence acquiring the stain of staleness or its having faded necessarily it being no longer in existence on anvil whereof the competent authority was enjoined to tenably refuse to make reference qua it to the Tribunal concerned. The competent authority of the appropriate Government given the non emanation from the workm