TMI Blog1958 (3) TMI 82X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e quota. The last enabled a workman to purchase at the stores the factory maintained essential and other commodities at pre-war prices upto the limit of the quota allotted to him. The minimum quota allotted to each of the workmen was ₹ 13. 1460 of the workmen received this minimum quota. The quota allotted to 202 others who belonged to the artisan class, ranged from ₹ 14 to ₹ 26. The employer and the employees both preferred a wage structure which provided for cash payments of basic wages and dearness allowance. That question was referred to the industrial tribunal at Madras (I.D. No. 6 of 1953). The award of the industrial tribunal in I.D. No. 6 of 1953 directed payment of dearness allowance on the basis of the cost of living index calculated at 4 annas 1 pie per point. With the index at 355 the dearness allowance payable under the terms of the award amounted to ₹ 64-9-0 a month. Some other features of the award have to be noted even at this stage. The cash dearness allowance was payable to all workmen. Secondly what all the workmen lost thereafter was the right to the basic minimum quota of ₹ 13. We have pointed out that 202 of the workmen were in ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 7; 3-8-0 per rupee. (b) ₹ 11 to ₹ 15 at ₹ 3 per rupee. (c) ₹ 16 and above at ₹ 2-8-0 per rupee. 5. We will quote an example of the actual working of a worker who drew ₹ 14 stores quota plus ₹ 1-8-0 plus Re. 1: Against this cash value which he received from the traders we are now paying ₹ 64-9-0 or ₹ 10-13-0 more. Therefore this worker has not lost anything but is benefited to the extent of ₹ 10-13-0. 7. The basic assumption of this proposal appears to have been that a workman did not utilize the full store purchase quota to purchase articles for his consumption alone, but that articles purchased at the concessional pre-war rates were subsequently sold at market prices or loss, and further that this abuse of the quota system was likely to be more pronounced in the case of the workmen who were in receipt of a quota above the minimum of ₹ 13. Based on the proposal set out above for evaluating the loss of the quota in excess of ₹ 13 was the second part of the proposal, to quantify the amount of. compensation with a slab basis. To quote , again the words of the management: In terms of this ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ss and the rate at which compensation was to be paid . . . was given to the union. The modification finally suggested by the conciliation officer was only in the rate of compensation and not in the method of arriving at the loss. The . matter was settled when the parties accepted the modification. When the union complained in November 1955 regarding the payment of compensation to four workers, it proceeded on the basis that the others had already been paid or were not eligible for the compensation. It is not now open to the union to agitate for a modification of the method of calculation of the loss to be compensated. The demand should be considered belated and not in accordance with the agreement. That, of course, set out only the point of view of the management which the conciliation officer contrasted with that put forward by the workmen; and he eventually reported that it was not possible to bring about a settlement between the parties. 11. On 14 May 1957 the Government referred to the industrial tribunal as an industrial dispute for adjudication the question of the calculation of the loss sustained by the workers who were formerly drawing stores quote of more than &# ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... undertaking they had given In the counter-statement filed in the previous reference. The loss will be determined in terms of the store quota, that is to say, if the employee was drawing say ₹ 14 or ₹ 15 then his loss will be Re. 1 or ₹ 2 store quota by deducting the minimum ₹ 13. That will be his loss in terms of the store quota, but in terms of cash at the post-war price, that loss must be multiplied 3 1/2 times; that is to say, if the difference in store quota is Re. 1, his loss would be ₹ 3-8-0 ; if his loss is ₹ 2 stores quota his loss would be ₹ 7. Having thus ascertained the loss, what is the amount of compensation to be paid to him will be determined in terms of the agreement between the parties before the conciliation officer in December 1954, that is to say, if the loss is between 7 annas and ₹ 5, the maximum compensation payable will be ₹ 3 and if the loss is between ₹ 5 and ₹ 10, the maximum compensation will be ₹ 7-8-0; and if the loss should exceed ₹ 10 the maximum compensation would be ₹ 12-8-0. In this connexion it is necessary to clarify one point, namely, that within the ambit of t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... o prove that the agreement covered also the method of evaluation, and the evidence of the conciliation officer would have helped the petitioner to establish his case. The probative value of that evidence of course was wholly for the tribunal to determine, but it erred in altogether shutting out the evidence. Such were the arguments of the learned Advocate-General. 14. We shall deal later with the contention of the learned Counsel for the respondent-workmen that the petition was not maintainable, and that it should be dismissed on that basis without going into the merits of the contention put forward by the petitioner. Independent of that line of argument the learned Counsel for the respondents urged, that there was material on which the tribunal could find that while there was no agreement on the question of the method of evaluation there was no agreement over the rates at which the loss after a proper evaluation should be compensated. 15. The tribunal of course was not bound by the strict rules of procedure and evidence applicable to a civil court. If for example the agreement in question had been reduced to writing and signed by the parties thereto, even the stricter pr ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nding we have recorded above, the petitioner would have been entitled to the issue of a writ a certiorari, had there been no other factor to be taken into account in deciding whether the petitioner should be given relief under Article 226 of the Constitution which is essentially discretionary in its scope. That brings us to the question whether the dismissal of the application the petitioner preferred to the Supreme Court under Article 136 of the Constitution, for the grant of leave to appeal against the award of the industrial tribunal, should be viewed in the circumstances of this case as a bar to the grant of the relief, to which the petitioner would have been otherwise entitled ex debito justitiae. 17. The result of the refusal of leave to appeal under Article 136 of the Constitution was that there was no appeal. In Venkata Reddi v. Narayana Reddi (1950) I M.L.J. 89, the learned Judges quoted with approval the observations of Piggot, J., in Balli v. Nandlal 33 Ind. Cas. 773 : Where an order is appealable only by leave of the District Court or of this Court, the memorandum of appeal should always be accompanied by a petition for leave to appeal, and it should be made cle ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... y tribunal of limited jurisdiction. The High Courts and the Supreme Courts alone can determine what the law of the land is vis-a-vis all other Courts and tribunals and they alone can pronounce with authority and finality on what is legal and what is not , . . Therefore, the jurisdiction of the High Courts under Article 226 with that of the Supreme Court above them remains to its fullest extent ... His lordship continued: The High Courts do not, and should not, act as Courts of appeal under Article 226. Their powers are purely discretionary and though no limits can be placed upon that discretion, it must be exercised along recognised lines and not arbitrarily; and one of the limitations imposed by the Courts on themselves is that they will not exercise jurisdiction in this class of cases unless substantial injustice has ensued or is likely to ensue. 20. The scope of the proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution is very much more limited compared to what the Supreme Court could order in an appeal, once leave is granted under Article 136 of the Constitution and the appeal is admitted. The grant of leave under Article 136 of the Constitution is however, essentially d ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... a wholly different question. 23. Consistent with the practice of the Supreme Court, no reasons were given for the refusal to grant the leave the petitioner had sought to prefer an appeal against the award of the industrial tribunal. That does not alter the fact that leave was refused. That would imply that their lordships of the Supreme Court were not satisfied that ex facie the award there was any indication of any failure of justice. No doubt the petitioner averred in the memorandum of appeal submitted along with the application for leave to appeal: 5. . . . even if the tribunal was in doubt the proper course was to examine the conciliation officer to verify whether the agreement was both regarding calculation of the loss and the compensation to be paid or any one of them. 6. The tribunal should have given effect to the entire agreement or in the alternative should have considered the entire question de novo . . . 8. The tribunal was in any event in error and acted without jurisdiction in refusing the petitioner permission to call and examine the Assistant Commissioner of Labour, especially in view of the fact that although the position was clear, doubts were ..... 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