vil Appeal No 310 of 1954
Appeal by special leave from the judgment and order dated March 22 1956 of the Labour Appellate Tribunal of India Calcutta in Appeal No Cal
183 of 1955
NC Chatterjee section N Mukherjee and B N Ghosh for the appellant
Sukumr Ghosh for the respondent
May 21
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by WANCHOO J
This appeal by special leave against the decision of the Labour Appellate Tribunal of India is limited to the question whether an order of reinstatement can be made on an application under section 33 A of 60 474 the hereinafter called the Act
The brief facts necessary for the decision of this question are these
The appellant is a Jute Mill
There was a dispute pending before an Industrial Tribunal between a number of jute mills in West Bengal and their employees and the appellant was a party to that dispute
During the pendency of that dispute the appellant laid off the respondent who was an employee in the ration shop maintained by the appellant from July 19 1954 as rationing of food stuff came to an end from July 10 1954
The reason for the lay off was that the ration shop was closed following the end of rationing
This resulted in the staff in that shop becoming surplus
Consequently nine persons were selected for retrenchment on the principle of  last come first go and the respondent was one of them
The appellant also applied under section 33 of the Act to the Industrial Tribunal for permission to retrench the respondent along with others
Shortly before the application under section 33 the respondent had applied under section 33 A of the Act and
his case was that there was no reason to make Any retrenchment on account of the closure of the ration shop and that he was at any rate longer in service than others who had been retained and therefore the principle of  last come first go  had not been followed
It was also said that the respondent had been laid off as he was an active worker of the union and as such was not in the good books of the appellant
It was therefore prayed that the respondent should be allowed full wages and amenities since the so called lay off which was nothing more nor less than retrenchment and that he should be reinstated
The Industrial Tribunal came to the conclusion that the lay off was justified because of the closure of the ration shop and gave permission to the appellant to retrench the respondent on the principle of  last come first go 
The respondent appealed to the Labour Appellate Tribunal
He did not urge there that there was no necessity for retrenchment at all
What was urged there was that the Industrial Tribunal was wrong in holding that the principle of  last come first 475 go had been followed in this case
The Appellate Tribunal came to the conclusion that the respondent had been in service much longer than others who had been retained and therefore the principle of  last come first go  had been violated
In consequence the appeal was allowed and the permission to retrench the respondent was refused
The Appellate Tribunal also ordered that the respondent should be reinstated in service without any break in the continuity of service and the order of the appellant in laying him off and discharging him in effect from July 19 1954 was set aside
Thereupon the appellant came to this Court and was granted special leave on the limited question set out above
In our opinion the answer to the limited question on which the special leave has been granted can only be one in view of the language of section 33 A
That section lays down that  where an employer contravenes the provision is of section 33 during the pendency of proceedings before a tribunal any employee aggrieved by such contravention may make a complaint in writing to the tribunal and on receipt of such complaint the tribunal shall adjudicate upon the complaint as if it were a dispute referred to or pending before it in accordance with the provisions of the Act and shall submit its award to the appropriate government and the provisions of this Act shall apply accordingly
 It is thus clear that a complaint under section 33 A of the Act is as good as a reference under section 10 of the Act and the tribunal has all the powers to deal with it as it would have in dealing with a reference under section 10
It follows therefore that the tribunal has the power to make such order as to relief as may be appropriate in the case and as it can make if a dispute is referred to it relating to the dismissal or discharge of a workman
In such a dispute it is open to the tribunal in proper cases to order reinstatement
Therefore a complaint under section 33 A being in the nature of a dispute referred to a tribunal under section 10 of the Act it is certainly within its power to order reinstatement on such complaint if the complaint is that the employee has been dismissed or discharged in breach of section 33
476 Learned counsel for the appellant wanted to argue that this was not a case of discharge or dismissal but of lay off
We did not permit him to raise this argument because the special leave was limited only to the question set out above
The answer to that question has already been indicated above and on that answer the appeal must fail
We therefore dismiss the appeal but in the circumstances we make no order as to costs of this Court
Appeal dismissed


Summary:
Section 2b of the Delhi and Ajmer Merwara Rent Control Act 1947 provided as follows   section 2
In this Act unless there is anything repugnant in in the subject or context a          b Premises  means any building or part of a building which is or is intended to be let separately for use as a residence or for commercial use or for any other purpose but does not include a room in a dharamshala hotel or lodging house
 The respondent occupied two rooms in the appellant s hotel described as the Ladies  and Gents  Cloak Rooms where he used to carry on his business as a hair dresser
The document executed by the parties purported to be one as between a licenser and licensee and provided inter alia that the respondent was to pay an annual rent of Rs 9600 in four quarterly installments which was later reduced to Rs 8400 by mutual agreement
The respondent made an application for standardisation of rent under section 71 of the Delhi and Ajmer Merwara Rent Control Act 1947 and the Rent Controller of Delhi fixed the rent at Rs 94 per month
On appeal by the appellant the I District judge reversed the order of the Rent Controller and dismissed the application holding that the Act did not apply
The High Court in revision set aside the order of the District judge and restored that of the Rent Controller holding that the agreement created a lease and not a license and that section 2 of the Act did not exempt the two rooms from the operation of the Act
The two questions for determination in this appeal were 1 whether the agreement created a lease or a license and 2 whether the said rooms were rooms in a hotel within the meaning of section 2b of the Act
Held Per section K Das and Sarkar jj Subba Rao J dissenting that the rooms let out by the appellant to the respondent were rooms in a hotel within the meaning of section 2b of the AjmerMerwara Rent Control Act 1947 and were as such excluded from the purview of the Act and the respondent was not entitled to claim standardisation of rent under its provisions
Per section K Das j In order that a room may be a room in a hotel  within the meaning of the Act it must fulfill two conditions 1 it must be part of the hotel in the physical sense and 2 its user must be connected with the general purpose of the hotel of which it is a part 369 A hair dresser s business provided one of the amenities of a modern hotel and as such it was connected with the business of the hotel
There could be no doubt from the terms of the agreement executed by the parties in the instant case that it was a lease and not a licence
Per Sarkar J
The words room in a hotel in section 2b of the Act must be given their plain meaning and a room in a hotel must therefore mean any room in a building in the whole of which the business of a hotel was carried on
Per Subba Rao J
Although the document executed by the parties was apparently in a language appropriate to a licence the agreement between them judged by its substance and real intention as it must be left no manner of doubt that the document was a lease
It had all the characteristics that distinguished it from a license namely 1 that it created an interest in the property in favour of the respondent and 2 it gave him exclusive possession thereof which in the absence of any circumstances that negatived it must indicate a clear intention to grant a lease
Errington vs Errington  and Cobb vs Lane  referred to
The words room in a hotel  properly construed must mean a room that was part of a hotel and partook of its character and did not cease to do so even after it was let out
Consequently where a hotel as in the instant case occupied the entire building and rooms were let out for carrying on a business different from that of a hotel such rooms could not fall within purview Of section 2 of the Act
There could be no reasonable nexus in this case between a hair dresser s business and that of a hotel as there was nothing in the document in question to prevent the tenant from carrying on any other business or to bind him to give any preferential treatment to the lodgers who could take their chance only as general customers the tenant s only liability being to pay the stipulated rent