Case: Emp.,Mgmt.Of Ramkanali Coll.Of M/S.Bccl Vs. Workmen By Secy.Rasht.Coll.Maz.Sangh&amp;Anr

us is that Section 14 of the Act stood substituted by an amendment made to it by deleting several provisions thereof. Section 14(1) of the Act provided as follows : "14. Employment of certain employees to continue - (1) Every person who is a workmen within the meaning of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, and has been immediately before the appointed date, an employee of the Central Government, in which the right, title and interest of such mine have vested under this Act, and shall hold office or service in the coal mine with the same rights would have been admissible to him if the rights in relation to such coal mine had not been transferred to, and vested in, the Central Government or the Government Company, as the case may be, and continue to do so unless and until his employment in such Coal Mine is duly terminated or until his remuneration, terms and conditions of employment are duly altered by the Central Government or the Government Company." (Rest of the provisions not extracted since unnecessary) 6. The said provision stood deleted and substituted by the following provision : "14. Liability of officer or other employee of a coal mine for transfer to any other coal mine. Notwithstanding anything contained in the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, or in any other law for the time being in force, the service of any officer or other employee employed in a coal mine shall be liable to be transferred to any compensation under this Act or any other law for the time being in force and no such claim shall be entertained by any court, tribunal or other authority." 7. The argument advanced now is that protection available under Section 14 is no longer available on the date when the award was made and, therefore, contended that the award is nullity. The decision in Bhubaneshwar Singh & Anr. v. Union of India & Ors., 1994(6) SCC 77, is in the context of enactment of law reviewing the defect pointed out in a judgment and retrospectively enacting the law so as to render the judgment of the court ineffective thus enacting a validating provision was considered. What happened in that case was courts took the view that the sale price of the stock of extracted coal lying at the commencement of the appointed date had to be taken into account for determining the profit and loss during the period of management of the mine by Central Government. Thereafter, the Coal Mines Nationalisation Laws (Amendment) Ordinance and Act, 1986 was issued. Section 19(2) of the Principal Act as introduced by the Amending Act and Section 19 of the Amending Act providing that the amount payable as compensation shall be deemed to include and deemed always payable as compensation shall be deemed to include and deemed always to have included in the amount required to be paid to the owner in respect of all coal in stock on the date immediately before the appointed date. The said Amending Act was held to be valid as it altered the basis of the principle Act with retrospective effect as a result of which Court" judgment was rendered ineffective and, therefore, this Court upheld the said provision. That decision can have no application to the present case nor are we concerned with the validity of the provisions of the enactment in question. What we are concerned in the present case is the effect of the expression "substituted" used in the context of deletion of sub-clause of Section 14, as was original enacted. In Bhagat Ram Sharma v. Union of India & Ors., 1988 Supp. SCC 30, this Court stated that it is a matter of legislative practice to provide while enacting an amending law, that an existing provision shall be deleted and a new provision substituted. If there is both repeal and introduction of another provision in place thereof by a single exercise, the expression "substituted" is used. Such deletion has the effect of the repeal of the existing provision and also provide for introduction of new provision. In our view there is thus no real distinction between repeal and amendment or substitution in such cases. If that aspect is borne in mind, we have to apply the usual principles of finding out the rights of the parties flowing from an amendment of a provision. If there is a vested right and that right is to be taken away, necessarily the law will have to be retrospective in effect and if such a law retrospectively takes away such a right, it can no longer be contended that the right should be enforced. However, that legal position, in the present case, does not affect the rights of the parties as such. 8. The Act came into force on 1.5.1973 and the employees (including former employees whose services were terminated) will continue to hold such employment as it nationalisation had not taken place. In the present case, the finding of the Tribunal is that the employees in question had not ceased to be employees but were merely not allowed to do work. This finding of fact arrived at on appreciation of evidence, cannot be faulted with at all. Hence, the right enforced by the employees will not attract the amended provision of the Act which came into force on 15.12.1986. 9. In that view of the matter, we do not think that the award made by the Tribunal is in any way wrong particularly, when the decision has been given on facts that as on the date of the take over the concerned workmen were employees of the appellant management. If that is so, they never ceased to be employees. All that happened was they were prevented from working in the Colliery, which was set right by the award. We find no substance in this appeal. The same shall, therefore, stand dismissed. No costs. C.A. 7596/99 : 10. The questions arising for consideration being identical this appeal is also dismissed.

Decision (1 = appeal accepted, 0 = rejected): 0

Explanation:
0[ds]8. The Act came into force on 1.5.1973 and the employees (including former employees whose services were terminated) will continue to hold such employment as it nationalisation had not taken place. In the present case, the finding of the Tribunal is that the employees in question had not ceased to be employees but were merely not allowed to do work. This finding of fact arrived at on appreciation of evidence, cannot be faulted with at all. Hence, the right enforced by the employees will not attract the amended provision of the Act which came into force on 15.12.1986.In that view of the matter, we do not think that the award made by the Tribunal is in any way wrong particularly, when the decision has been given on facts that as on the date of the take over the concerned workmen were employees of the appellant management. If that is so, they never ceased to be employees. All that happened was they were prevented from working in the Colliery, which was set right by the award. We find no substance in this appeal.