:1: IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION WRIT PETITION NO. 10335 OF 2004 M/s. Sumeet Machines Ltd. .. Petitioners Vs. Sumeet Machines Employees Union and ors. .. Respondents Mr. J.P. Cama, Senior Advocate with Mr. A.D. Shetty and Ms. Rita Joshi for petitioners. Mr. Bhavesh Parmar for respondent no.1. Mr. Harihar Bhave i/by M/s. Bhave and Co. for respondent no.2. CORAM: B.H. MARLAPALLE, J. CORAM: B.H. MARLAPALLE, J. CORAM: B.H. MARLAPALLE, J. Date : March 28, 2008. Date : March 28, 2008. Date : March 28, 2008. P.C.: P.C.: P.C.: 1. This petition arises from the Judgment and Order dated 9/9/2004 rendered by the Industrial Court at Nasik thereby dismissing Restoration Application No. 8 of 2003. 2. The Complaint (ULP) No. 295 of 1999 came to be filed by the respndent - Union under Item 6 of Schedule II and Items 9 and 10 of Schedule IV read :2: with Section 28 (1) of the M.R.T.U. & P.U.L.P. Act, 1971 (the Act for short) praying for direction to the Industrial Court for payment wages from October, 1996 onwards. Along with the said complaint, an application at Exh.U-2 was filed for condonation of delay and the same was also allowed after issuing notice to the Company. It appears the Company did not cause its appearance and the complaint, therefore, came to be allowed ex parte as per the Judgment and Order dated 28/11/2000 thereby directing the Company to pay the charges to all the workers concerned from October, 1996 to November, 2000 within one month. Misc. Application No. 8 of 2003 came to be filed by the petitioner for restoration of Complaint (ULP) No. 295 of 1999, on or about 15/9/2003, along with an affidavit in support thereof. The respondent - Union filed its reply and opposed the application and the learned Member of the Industrial Court was pleased to reject the said application by the impugned judgment and order. 3. Mr. Cama the learned Senior Counsel for the petitioners submitted that at the first instance :3: though the notice was received in Complaint (ULP) No. 295 of 1999, complaint copy and other doucments were not received by the petitoiners and, therefore, the petitioner - company addressed the letter dated 20/7/2000 seeking copies of the complaint and did not claim anything further. Mr. Cama referred to the scheme of Section 31(1) of the Act as well as Rule 109 of the Industrial Court Regulations 1975 and submitted that the Industrial Court could not have proceeded to decide the complaint ex parte unless the complaint copies and all other documents were served upon the petitioner-company. Secondly, so far as the challenge to the impugned order is concerned, Mr.Cama submitted that an application was filed at the earliest possible after the petitioners got the knowledge of the ex parte order dated 28/11/2000. The Industrial Court was not impressed by these submissions and held that the Company failed to make out good, just and sufficient reasons to condone the delay and there is no provision to condone the delay in preferring the application for restoration. 4. So far as the first part of the arguments :4: advanced by Mr.Cama, the same may be relevant while considering the challenge to the ex parte judgment and order dated 28/11/2000 and the second part of the agruments is required to be considered to examine the challenge to the impugned order. 5. Even if it is assumed that the Industrial Court had not taken steps as required under the Act or the Regulations to forward a copy of the judgment and order dated 28/11/2000 to the petitioners or any one of them, the fact remains that the Union had invoked the provisions of Section 48 of the Act and filed a criminal complaint against the petitioners before the Labour Court on account of their alleged failure to implement ex parte order dated 28/11/2000 and the Labour Court had issued process. Admittedly, on receipt of the process from the Labour Court, the accused had caused their appearance in the criminal proceedings on 10/1/2001 and, therefore, on that day they are deemed to have knowledge of the ex parte order by giving them a benefit of doubt that on receipt of the process they mat not be aware as to what exact order was passed against them. In :5: addition, the Union had sent a letter dated 13/2/2001 which was received by the company on 19/2/2001 and this was the second time that the petitioners were aware of the ex parte order dated 28/11/2000. As against this, surprisingly, the restoration application was moved for the first time on 15/9/2003. Section 31(2) of the Act reads as under:- 31. Consequences of non-appearance of parties:- (1) ........ (2) Where any order is made ex parte under sub-section (1), the aggrieved party may, within thirty days of the receipt of the copy thereof,make an application to the Court to set aside such order. If the Court is satisifed that there was sufficient cause for non-appearance of the aggrieved party, it may set aside the order so made, and shall appoint a date for proceeding with the matter:" :6: . It is thus clear that the limitation prescribed to apply for setting aside the ex parte order is of 30 days and if the court is satisfied regarding the sufficiency of the cause for non appearance of the aggrieved party, it has the powers to set aside the exparte order. 6. The petitoners-company or its directors had sufficient time and full opportunity to apply for a certified copy of the ex party order on 10/1/2001 when they appeared before the Labour Court or on 19/2/2001 when they had received the Union’s letter. They did not do so and for the reasons best known to them. Instead, they applied for the certified copy for the first time on 29/4/2002. The restoration application discloses that the certified copy was received on the same day and despite that for almost one year and five months the company did not take any steps to apply for restoration. 7. Hence, in these obtaining circumstances, no fault could be found with the impugned order passed by the Industrial Court on 9/9/2004 thereby rejecting the :7: Restoration Application No. 8 of 2003, while exercising the supervisory powers under Article 227 of the Constitution. 8. Mr.Shetty at this stage submitted an oral application to amend the petition so as to challenge the ex parte order dated 28/11/2000. However, such a challenge can be brought before this court by filing a fresh petition. 9. Hence, this petition fails and the same is hereby dismissed with liberty to the petitioner to file a fresh petition to challege the ex parte order dated 28/11/2000. Rule is discharged. No costs. (B.H. Marlapalle,J.) (B.H. Marlapalle,J.) (B.H. Marlapalle,J.)