Case: The Central Bank Of India Ltd Vs. P.S. Rajagopalan Etc

Civil Appeals 823 to 826 of 1962 arise out of applications made by four respondents under s. 33C(2) of the Act. The case for each one of the respondents was that besides attending to his routine duties as clerk, he had been operating the adding machine provided for use in the clearing department of the Branch during the period mentioned in the list annexed to the petition and it was alleged that as such, he was entitled to the payment of Rs. 10/-per month as special allowance for operating the adding machine as provided for under paragraph 164(b)(1) of the Sastry Award. On this basis, each one of the respondents made his respective claim for the amount covered by the said allowance payable to him during the period specified in theappellant disputed the respondents claims. It urged three preliminary objections against the competence of the applications. According to it, the respondents could claim only non-monetary benefits under the Award that were capable of computation and so, s. 33G(2)was inapplicable to their claim. It was also contended that without a reference made by the Central Government, the applications were not maintainable, and it was pleaded that since the applications involved a question of the interpretation of the Sastry Award, they were outside the purview of s. 33C(2). On the merits, the appellants case was that the special allowance claimed by the respondents was payable only to the Comptists and could not be claimed by the respondents on the ground that they were operating adding machines. In support of this contention, the appellant alleged that a certain amount of manipulative skill is required for the handling of a Comptometer since the operater has to execute a series of somewhat complex operations in quick succession before he can arrive at a result. the art of operating a comptometer has to be learnt over several months, but the work of operating the adding machine needs no special training and does not require even the skill which a typist has to show. That= is why, according to the appellant, no special allowance could be claimed by the respondents under paragraph 164(b)(1) of the Sastry Award.The Central Government Labour Court before which these applications were made by the respondents over-ruled the preliminary objections raised by the appellant and on the merits, found that the respondents were entitled to claim the special allowance under the relevent clause of the Sastry Award. That is how the applications made by the respondents were allowed and the respective amounts claimed by them were ordered to be paid by the appellant. It is against this order that the appellant has come to this Court by special leave.

Reasoning:
In other words, the provisions of s.20 (2) roughly correspond to the provisions of s.33C(2) of the Act. There are, however, two points of distinction. Section 20(2) was confined to the benefits claimable by workmen under an award or decision of an Industrial tribunal; and the application to be made in that behalf had to be filed before the industrial tribunal which made the said award or decision. These two limitations have not been introduced in s. 33C(2). Section 20(3) corresponds to s.33C:(3). It would thus be noticed that s.. 20 of this Act provides a speedy remedy to individual workmen to execute their rights under awards or decisions of industrialin construing s. 33-C we have to bear in mind two relevant considerations. The construction should not be so broad as to bring within the scope of s. 33-C cases which would fall under s. 10(1). Where industrial disputes arise between employees acting collectively and their employers, they must be adjudicated upon in the manner prescribed by the Act, as for instance, by reference under s, 10(1). These disputes cannot be brought within the purview of s. 33C. Similarly, having regard to the fact that the policy of the Legislature in enacting s. 33C is to provide a speedy remedy to the individual workmen to enforce or execute their existing rights, it would not be reasonable to exclude from the scope of this section cases of existing rights which are sought to be implemented by individual workmen. In other words, though in determining the scope of s. 33C we must take care not to exclude cases which legitimately fall within its purview, we must also bear in mind that cases which, fall under s. 10(1) of the Act for instance cannot be brought within the scope of s.must accordingly hold that s. 33C (2) takes within its purview cases of workmen who claimed that the benefit to which they are entitled should be computed in terms of money, even though the right to the benefit on which their claim is based is disputed by their employers incidentally, it may be relevant to add that it would be somewhat odd that under sub-s. (3), the Labour Court should have been authorised to delegate the work of computing the money value of the benefit to the Commissioner if the determination of the said question was the only task assigned to the Labour Court under sub-s. (2). On the other hand, sub-s. 3 becomes intelligible if it is held that what can be assigned to the Commissioner includes only a part of the assignment of the Labour Court under sub- s. (2).It is, however, urged that in dealing with the question about the existence of a right set up by the workman, the Labour Court would necessarily have to interpret the award or settlement on which the right is based, and that cannot be within its jurisdiction under s. 33C (2), because interpretation of awards or settlements has been specifically and expressly provided for by s. 36A. We have already noticed that s. 36A has also been added by the Amending Act No. 36 of 1956 along with section 33C, and the appellants argument is that the legislature introduced the two sections together and thereby indicated that questions of interpretation fall within s. 36A and, therefore, outside s. 33C (2). There is no force in. this contention. Section 36A. merely provides for the interpretation of any provision of an award or settlement where any difficulty or doubt arises as to the said interpretation. Generally, this power is invoked when the employer and his employees are not agreed as to the interpretation of any award or settlement, and the appropriate Government is satisfied that a defect or doubt has arisen in regard to any provision in the award or settlement. Sometimes, cases may arise where the awards or settlements are obscure, ambiguous or otherwise present difficulty in construction. It is in such cases that s. 3CA can be invoked by the parties by moving the appropriate Government to make the necessary reference under it. Experience showed that where awards or settlements were defective in the manner just indicated, there was no remedy available to the parties to have their doubts or difficulties resolved and that remedy is now provided by s. 36A. But the scope-of s. 36A .is different from the scope of s. 33C (2), because s. 36A is not concerned with the implemention or execution of the award at all, whereas that is the sole purpose of s. 33C (2). Whereas s. 33C(2) deals with cases of implementation of individual rights of workmen falling under its provisions, s. 36A deals merely with a question of interpretation of the award where a .dispute arises in that behalf between the workmen and the employer and the appropriate Government is satisfied that the dispute deserves to be resolved by reference under s. 36A.Besides, there can be no doubt that when the Labour Court is given the power to allow an individual workman to execute or implement his` existing individual rights, it is virtually exercising execution powers in some cases, and it is well settled that it is open to the Executing Court to interpret the decree for the purpose of execution. It is, of course, true that the executing Court cannot go behind the decree, nor can it add to or subtract from the provision of the decree. These limitations apply also to the Labour Court; but like the executing Court, the Labour Court would also be competent to interpret the award or settlement on which a workman bases his claim under s. 33C (2). Therefore, we feel no difficulty in holding that for the purpose of making the necessary determination under s. 33C (2), it would, in appropriate cases, be open to the Labour Court to interpret the award or settlement on which the workmans rightis true that the Imperial Bank of India adopted the nomenclature of adding machine operators for its Comptists and that may presumably be for the reason. that at the relevant time, its Comptists were doing the work of adding machine operators and Ad- dressographers; so that it made no difference whether the bank called them Comptists or adding machine operators or Addressographers, all the three types of work being entrusted to one category of employees; but however that may be, the nomenclature adopted by the Imperial Bank of India cannot be said to be binding on the other banks which did not adopt it, and so, it is obviously erroneous to hold that the equivalent adopted by the Imperial Bank of India must be taken to have been adopted by all the other banks. Indeed, the Award recently made by Mr. Justice Desai who was appointed the National Industrial Tribunal in the Bank Disputes clearly brings out the distinction between Comptists on the one hand, and adding machine operators, addressographers and photostat machine operators on the other in paragraphs 5. 242 and 5. 265.In the present appeals, no evidence was led on behalf of the respondents. The appellant, however, examined its officer Mr. Shivodkar. This witness stated that an adding machine can be operated by a clerk with half an hours practice. It only does additions mechanically. Operating a comptometer, however, involves complicated calculations and in order to handle it efficiently, the employee has to take three months training and practising. He added that about two hours work is put on the adding machine by the several respondents, but it is included in their normal working hours. There has been some discussion at the Bar in the present appeals as to the nature of the work which is done on the comptometer and on the adding machine, but there can be no doubt that compared to the comptometer, the adding machine is a simple mechanism and for operating on it, not much experience or technical training is required; in fact, it may not even require that amount of skill and efficiency which is expected of a typist and it is significant that a claim made by the typists for special allowance was rejected by the Sastry Tribunal. That shows how the respondents claim for special allowance as Comptists solely on the ground that they can be described as adding machine operators, cannot be sustained. Therefore, -the sole basis on which the respondents claim has been allowed by the Labour Court is unsound, and so the order passed by it cannot be affirmed.We would, therefore, set aside the order passed by the Labour Court and remand the proceedings to that Court with a direction that it should allow the parties to amend their pleadings if they so desire and to lead evidence in support of their respective cases. It may be open to the respondents to prove that they are doing the work which may be properly described as the work of Comptists. In that connection, it may also be open to them incidentally to show that the work which was being done in the Imperial Bank of India by the adding machine operators who were shown as equivalents of the Comptists at the relevant time is being done by them in the appellants branches. If the Labour Court is satisfied that the work done by the respondents can be reasonably treated as the work of Comptists as properly understood in the banking industry, then it should proceed to determine the respondents claim on that basis. We have already referred to the fact that the Labour Appellate Tribunal made it perfectly clear that the particular nomenclature was not decisive and that what mattered in these cases was the nature of the duties and responsibilities of a post. If the nature of the duties and responsibilities of the posts held by the respondents legitimately Justify the conclusion that they are comptists, then the special allowance can be claimed by them. It is in the light of these observations that the Labour Court should proceed to deal with these cases after remand. If the parties want to amend their pleadings, they should move the Labour Court in that behalf within a fortnight after the receipt of the record in that Court. Then the Labour Court should fix an early date for taking evidence and should deal with these matters as expeditiously as possible.