TMI Blog1957 (3) TMI 55X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... h is connected with the employment or nonemployment or the terms of employment or with the conditions of labour, of any person. The controversy between the parties arose in the following circumstances: Tajammul Hussain, respondent No. 3 was employed as a lino typist by the appellant company. He was dismissed on May 8, 1952, on, allegations of incompetence under r. 12 (ii) of the Standing Orders of the appellant company. It was alleged that the dismissal of Respondent No. 3 was welcomed by his co-workers and other workmen in the employ of the appellant company and they made no grievance of it, nor did they espouse his cause. The case of respondent No. 3 was not taken up by any union of workers of the appellant company nor by any of the unions of workmen employed in similar or allied trades, but the U.P. Working Journalists Union, Lucknow, with which respondent No. 3 had no connection whatsoever, took the matter to the Conciliation Board, Allahabad. Ultimately, the U.P. Government made a reference to the Industrial Tribunal on June 3, 1953, by notification; the prefatory words of which are: Whereas an industrial dispute in respect of the matters hereinafter specified ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... expedient for the purpose of the order; Under s. 23 of the Act, the State Government can make rules consistent with the Act for giving effect to the provisions of the Act. Under clauses (b), (c), (d) and (g) of s. 3 and under s. 8 of the U.P. Act, rules governing Conciliation Boards and Industrial Tribunals in U.P. were promulgated by Notification No. 615 (LL) XVIII-7 (LL)-1951, dated Lucknow, March 15, 1951. Rule 4 deals with the reference of disputes to Conciliation Boards. The relevant portions of this rule are: ,,Any workman or an employer or a registered association or trade union of employers or registered trade union of workmen or any federation of such associations or trade unions or where no registered trade union of workmen exists in any particular concern or industry, the representatives not more than 5 in number of the workmen in that concern or the industry, duly elected in this behalf by a majority of the workmen employed in that concern or industry, as the case may be, at a meeting held for the purpose, may by application in writing move a Conciliation Officer of the area for settlement of any industrial dispute by conciliation. The application shall clear ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ts intention determined by construing all the constituent parts of the Act together and not by taking detached sections or to take one word here and another there. Exposition ex visceribus actus is applicable. Lincoln College s Case (3 Co. Rep. 58: 76 E. R. 764). So construed the provisions of the U.P. Act show that the machinery of the Act has been devised with the object of maintaining industrial peace so as to prevent interference with public safety or public order or with the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the life of the community or of employment. The Act is based on the necessity of achieving collective amity between labour and capital by means of conciliation, mediation and adjudication. The object of the Act is the prevention of industrial strife, strikes and lock-outs and the promotion of industrial peace and not to take the place of the ordinary tribunals of the land for the enforcement of contracts between an employer and an individual workman. Thus viewed the provisions of the Act lead to the conclusion that its applicability to an individual dispute as opposed to dispute involving a group of workmen is excluded unless it acquires the general ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... men and workman in the above rule is indicative of the intention of the Act being applicable to collective disputes and not to individual ones, and this is fortified by the finality and the binding effect to awards by r. 28 and more speciall.v by a. 18 of the Central Act which makes awards binding not only on the individuals present or represented but on all the workmen employed in the establishment and even on future entrants. Another objection to reading these rules in the manner above suggested is that it would be tantamount to enlarging the scope of the expression industrial dispute and the powers conferred on the State Government under s. 3 of the U. P. Act. The executive cannot under the power of framing rules and regulations clothe itself with powers which the Statute itself does not give and which are inconsistent with the interpretation put on the expression industrial dispute . The cardinal rule in regard to promulgation of bye-laws or making rules is that they must be legi fidei rationi consona, and therefore all regulations which are contrary or repugnant to statutes under which they are made are ineffective. If the expression I industrial dispute as ordinarily u ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d in s. 2(k), of the Central Act, and after referring to the conflict of judicial opinion as to its applicability to the case of a dispute between an employer and a single workman further observed: of the last of the three views stated above, and there is considerable reason behind it. Notwithstanding that the language of s. 2(k) is wide enough to cover a dispute between an employer and a single employee, the scheme of the Industrial Disputes Act does appear to contemplate that- the machinery provided therein should be set in motion, to settle only disputes which involve the rights of workmen as a class and that a dispute touching the individual rights of a workman was not intended to be the subject of an adjudication under the Act, when the same had not been taken up by the union or a number of workmen. Although the question did not directly arise, this Court in D . N. Banerji v. P. R. Mukherjee and others([1953] S.C.R. 302, 310. ) discussed the meaning of the expression industrial dispute and was of the opinion that it conveys the meaning to the ordinary mind that the dispute must be such as would affect large groups of workmen and employers ranged on opposite sides...... ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d.( [1943] 2 All E.R. 633) was an instance of an individual dispute developing into a trade dispute because. of the strike by a union to enforce the reinstatement of dismissed workman. That was how this term (trade dispute) was interpreted by the Court of Appeal in R. v. National Arbitration Tribunal([1951] 2 All E.R. 828.) after taking into consideration the definition of the word dispute . In Australian cases also, without specific reference to any definition of the phrase the courts have excluded individual disputes from the scope of industrial disputes. In Jumbunna Coal Mine v. Victorian Coal Miners Association ([1908] 6 C.L.R. 309, 332), Griffths C.J. observed: An industrial dispute exists where a considerable numberof employees engaged in some branch of industry make common cause in demanding from or refusing to their employers (whether one or more) some change in the conditions of employment which is denied to them................................................... Similarly in Federated Saw Mills Co. Employees of Australasia v. James Moore Son Proprietory Ltd. ([1909] 8 C.L.R. 465, 487, 488), Griffths C.J. gave the characteristics of an industrial dispute a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ndaram by name. In the , High Court an objection was taken to the legality of the award on the ground that no industrial dispute existed and that there was no material before the Government on the basis of which it could make a reference. It was held that the dispute as to a single workman was not an industrial dispute. Kandan Textile Ltd. case (1) was followed in United Commercial Bank, Ltd. v. The Commissioner of Labour, Madras (2) which was a case under s. 41 of the Madras Shops and Establishments Act and the right of appeal given to an individual employee against the order of the employer dispensing with his services under s. 41(2) of Madras Shops and Establishments Act was challenged on the ground that it had been taken away by the Central Act. It was held that an individual worker had the right to appeal. Vishwanatha Sastri J. in his judgment referred with approval to the distinction made between an individual dispute and an industrial dispute in Kandan Textile Ltd. v. Industrial Tribunal, Madras (supra). The second view that such a dispute falls within the definition of the word industrial dispute is supported by a decision of a Full Bench of the Labour Appellate Tribun ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... is espoused by a union. The same view was taken in Lynus Co. v. Hemanta Kumar Samanta ([1956] 2 L.L.J. 89). The view taken in these cases is in accord with the interpretation we have put on the expression Industrial dispute as defined in the U. P. Act or the Central Act. Taking into consideration the whole tenor of the Act and the decisions of this Court the decided cases to the extent that they take a contrary view, i.e., an individual dispute is comprised in an industrial dispute must unless there is something peculiar- as to facts, be In spite of the fact that the making of a reference by the Government under the Industrial Disputes Act is the exercise of its administrative powers, that is not destructive of the rights of an aggrieved party to show that what was referred was not an industrial dispute at all and therefore the jurisdiction of the Industrial Tribunal to make the award can be questioned, even though the factual existence of a dispute may not be subject to a party s challenge. State of Madras v. C. P. Sarathy (1), It may also be noted that the notification issued by the U. P. Government on January 3, 1953, already quoted proceeds on the assumption t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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