TMI Blog1960 (2) TMI 68X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... reciation fund said to have been used as working capital. If this claim was allowed and the amount claimed to deducted as a prior charge no surplus would remain so that the employees would not be entitled to any bonus. The Industrial Tribunal was of opinion that even if the depreciation reserve was utilized as working capital no return thereon was allowable for the purpose of deciding on the amount to be deducted as prior charges in applying the Full Bench Formula. In this view it was clearly wrong. Numerous decisions of this Court make it abundantly clear that any portion of the reserve actually utilized as working capital in the year under consideration should be treated as entitled to a reasonable rate of return and the amount thus ascer ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... as actually utilised as working capital. It was suggested before us that this averment by implication that the depreciation fund was also used as working capital was not challenged by the workers. This suggestion is obviously incorrect. We find that in Exhibit U/1 a statement submitted on behalf of the workers containing calculations for the available surplus ₹ 3,000 was shown as the amount deductible on working capital at 2%. That is, a sum of ₹ 1,50,000 out of the reserves was stated to have been used as working capital. The employer's statement in Exhibit C/3 dated July 12, 1957, shows a deduction of interest at 4% on Reserves employed as working capital - ₹ 32,000 . A similar claim is made in Ex. C/4, an alternati ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... le unless it is known as a fact that the statements made in the balance-sheets under there different heads are correct statements. On that there is absolutely no evidence. All that the balance-sheet, as submitted, shows is that certain statements were made. The mere fact that the statements were made can never be taken as proving that the statements were correct. 4. That is a distinction which the courts of law have always been careful to make. Thus, if a person is to prove that he was ill on a particular date, the mere filling of a certificate of a medical man that he was ill on that date is not accepted as evidence to show that he was ill. The correctness of the statement made in the certificate has to be proved by an affidavit or ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... real and adequate opportunity to the labour to canvass the correctness of the particulars furnished by the employer. In that case we also considered an observation in Indian Hume Pipe Company Ltd. v. Their Workmen,(1959)IILLJ357SC , which was relied upon for an argument that the balance-sheet was good evidence to prove that amounts were actually used as working capital. As was pointed out in Khandesh Spg. Weaving Mills Case, Civil Appeal No. 257 of 1958 (1960)ILLJ541SC (Supra) this observation was not intended to lay down the law that a balance-sheet by itself was good evidence to prove any fact as regards the actual utilisation of reserves as working capital. The observation relied on was a sentence at page 362 :- Moreover, no objectio ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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