THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE NOOTY RAMAMOHANA RAO WRIT PETITION No.24841 of 2001 DATED: 16.11.2009 Between: All India Federation of Trade Unions Twin Cities Committee, rep.by its Joint Secretary K.V.S. Ramachandra Rao ..... PETITIONER AND Asst. Commissioner of Labour, Circle-I, T.Anjaiah Bhavan, R.T.C. X Roads, Hyderabad. .....RESPONDENTS ORDER: Learned Assistant Government Pleader for Labour is fair and candid enough in admitting that the Labour Conciliation Officer, whose duty it was to conciliate the disputes, is purposefully, and for invalid reasons, not performing his duties properly and thus become a burden on the State. In view of this submission, the 2nd respondent- State of A.P. represented by its Principal Secretary, Labour Employment Training and Factories Department, Hyderabad, is directed to take appropriate disciplinary action against the officer concerned so as to see that the burden on the State exchequer is reduced correspondingly. This writ petition has been instituted to direct the 2nd respondent to consider the request made by the writ petitioner for referring the dispute, concerning the retrenchment of 16 casual workers on 04.10.2000 by the 3rd respondent-management, for adjudication under Section 10 (1) of the Industrial Disputes Act. Section 10 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (henceforth referred to, for brevity, as the Act), has constituted a mechanism for referring disputes to Boards, Tribunals and Courts. Sub Section (1) of Section 10 of the Act mandates the appropriate Government, when it is of opinion that any industrial dispute exists or even when it is so apprehended to order a dispute to be referred to a Board or to a Labour Court provided the subject matter of the dispute relates to any matter specified in the second schedule to the Act and to a Tribunal where the subject matter referred is specified in second or the third schedule of the Industrial Disputes Act, for its adjudication. Section 10 of the Act, therefore, constitutes certain powers on the State as well as its delegated authorities for immediately conciliating any such dispute and, in case such steps and measures fail to produce the desired result, to refer the dispute for adjudicatory process. Thus, the process of conciliation has been conceived by the statute as a great step in aid for preventing any turbulence in the industrial environment and for the purpose of maintaining the equilibrium in the relations between the labour and their management. When the officials constituted for discharging these functions either wantonly or purposefully neglect or disregard the mandate of the statute, the State should have taken firm and stern action against any such erring departmental officials. Far from undertaking any such exercise, the State, in the instant case, has unnecessarily delayed the adjudicatory process of the dispute by the competent Labour Court/Tribunal. It is only, therefore, appropriate that the dispute in question be referred for adjudication to a Labour Court/Tribunal concerned within a period of thirty days from today. It is needless to observe that the 2nd respondent would take necessary and adequate measures to eradicate and smoothen the creases, which have come to his notice in the functioning of the departmental officials. With this, the writ petition stands disposed of. No order as to costs. __________________________ (Nooty Ramamohana Rao, J) 16th November, 2009. IBL