Case: All India Bank Employees  Vs. National Industrial Tribunal &amp; Others (And Connected Petitions)

1. Civil Appeal No. 154 of 1961 has been filed on special leave obtained from this Court against an order of K. T. Desai, J., functioning as the National Industrial Tribunal (Banks Disputes) Bombay dated October 31, 1960. The point arising for decision in the appeal is as regards the constitutional validity of S. 34A ofthe Banking Companies Act, 1949which was enacted on August 26, 1960 as an amendment to the patent Act (Act X of 1949), The appellant before this Court is the All India Bank Employees Association which is a trade union organization of Bank Employees of several banks operating in India. The Punjab National Bank Employees Union, which is a trade union with similar objects has been permitted to intervene in this appeal in support of the appellant union. The three other Writ Petitions are by other Bank Employees Unions whose description would be apparent from the cause title and all these cases have been heard together because in the writ petitions also the point raised is identical, viz., the validity of S. 34A of the Banking Companies Act, which will be referred to hereafter as the impugned provision.Section 34A whose validity is the matter in dispute in these proceedings runs in the following(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in Sec. 11 ofthe Industrial Disputes Act,or any other law for the time being in force, no banking company shall, in any proceeding under the said Act or in any appeal or other proceeding arising therefrom or connected therewith, be compelled by any authority before which such proceeding is pending to produce, or give inspection of, any of its books of account or other document or furnish or disclose any statement or information, when the banking company claims that such document, statement or information is of a confidential nature and that the production or inspection of such document or the furnishing or disclosure of such statement or information would involve disclosure of information relating to .(a) any reserves not shown as such in its published balance sheet; or(b) any particulars not shown therein in respect of provisions made for bad and doubtful debts and other usual or necessary provisions.2. If, in any such proceeding in relation to any banking company other than the Reserve Bank of India, any question arises as to whether any amount out of the reserves or provisions referred to in sub-section (1) should be taken into account by the authority before which such proceeding is pending, the authority may, if it so thinks fit, refer the question to the Reserve Bank and the Reserve Bank shall after taking into account principles of sound banking and all relevant circumstances concerning the banking company, furnish to the authority a certificate stating that the authority shall not take into account any amount as such reserves and provisions of the banking company or may take them into account only to the extent of the amount specified by it in the certificate, and the certificate of the Reserve Bank on such question shall be final and shall not be called in question in any such proceeding.(3) For the purposes of this section, banking company" shall have the meaning assigned to it inBefore commencing the examination of the points in controversy and the grounds on which the legality of the above provision is impugned, it would be helpful for a better appreciation of the problem if we set out, in very brief outline, the history of the steps which led to the enactment in dispute. There was a long standing practice in England of Banking Companies, as distinguished from companies carrying on other commercial etc. activities, not to disclose, in their balance sheets and Profit and Loss accounts, bad and doubtful debts and the provision made therefor, as well as the secret reserves created and held under various items-a practice which received judicial recognition by Buckley, L. J. in Newton v. Birmmgham Small Arms Co. Ltd., (1906) 2 Ch 378. This practice was followed by several banks in India and questions arose from time to time as to how far the practice was consistent with the statutory provisions as to disclosure contained in the several Companies Acts enacted from time to time. We shall, however, add that the desirability and even the legality of this practice has not gone without challenge, though there has been a considerable body of opinion which has held this to be salutary and necessary for the preservation and progress of a credit institution like a bank. We are not now concerned with the desirability or ethics of the practice which is a matter for the consideration of the legislature but as to the steps by which accord was established between the practice and the law4. The Indian Companies Act of 1866 drew no distinction between the contents of balance-sheets of banking-companies as distinguished from those of other companies and both were required to disclose a list of debts owing to the concern which were considered bad or doubtful. Provisions on the same lines, i.e., without any distinction between Banking and other companies, were copied and continued by the Indian companies Act of 1882. When, however the Companies Act of 1913 was enacted Form F to the 3rd Schedule to the Act contained a note in respect of the sub-heading book debts under the head Property and Assets in the balance sheet, readingin the case of a bank between those considered good and in respect of which the bank is fully secured and those considered good for which the bank holds no security other than the debtors personal security; and distinguishing in all cases between debts considered good and debts considerer doubtful or bad. Debts due by directors or other officers of the company or any of them either severally or jointly with any other persons to be separately stated in allwould be seen that by reason of this note the obligations imposed upon banks as regards the classification of their assets and the information to be disclosed became slightly, more detailed than in the case of other companies. The practice, however, of bankers to which we adverted earlier not to disclose or not to disclose to the full extent, bad and doubtful debts but to make provision for them by setting aside under other heads, sufficient moneys which would operate as secret reserves, so that the credit of the institution would not be affected while its financial stability would remain unimpaired, was continued notwithstanding this change in the form. The Central Bank of India Limited in its published balance-sheets of the year 1925 adopted the above practice which, however, was not obviously in strict conformity with the requirements of Form F to the third schedule read with the note. The managing-director of the bank was prosecuted by one Shamdasani who was a shareholder of the bank for "filing and publishing statements which were false in material particulars", an offence punishable under S. 282 of the Indian Companies Act. The magistrate acquitted the accused on the ground that the balance-sheet was in accordance with the usual practice of bankers and that the reserves of the company which were shown under various heads though not as a specific provision for bad and doubtful debts covered the possible losses several times. An application for revision was filed before the High Court of Bombay and Fawcett, J. allowed it holding that "a declared provision of the form cannot be allowed to be whittled down by general considerations as to the object of a balance-sheet". This judgment was rendered on February 28, 1927, (vide P. D. Shamdasani v. S. M. Pochkanavala, AIR 1927 Bom 414  : 29 Bom LR 722) and very soon thereafter the Government of India intervened by a notification dated March 29, 1927, under S. 151 of the Companies Act 1913 amending form F and as amended banks were excluded from the requirement of disclosing the reserve for bad and doubtful debts under the heading Capital and Liabilities in the left-hand side of the balance-sheet, and in the right-hand column "book-debts which were bad and doubtful for which provision had been made to the satisfaction of the auditors", were not required to be shown as part of the property and assets of a Bank.5. The provisions of the Companies Act of 1913 underwent numerous changes by the amending Act of 1936 which included inter alia one whereby the change effected by the Notification, dated March 29, 1927, in Form F were omitted and Form F was made to retain the note which accompanied it under the Act of 1913 without the exception in favour of banks effected by the Notification. This was possibly unintended, because on the day after the amending Act came into operation, the Central Government published a Notification on January 16, 1937, again under S. 151 of the Companies Act restoring the alterations in the balance sheet Form F as had been effected by the prior Notification of March 1927. The validity of this Notification was questioned as being beyond the powers of the Central Government by Shamdasani who filed a complaint against the Central Bank of India Limited and its directors charging them with having issued a false balance-sheet for the year ending December 31, 1939, a balance-sheet which was in conformity with the form as modified by the Notification. The Magistrate upheld the validity of the Notification and acquitted the accused. Shamdasani preferred a revision to the High Court and a Full Bench of the Bombay High Court held that the Notification was beyond the powers of the Central Government, though the order of acquittal was affirmed upholding the plea of the accused that their act was bona fide in that they believed the alteration in the form to be valid (Vide P.D. Shamdasani v. The Central Bank of India Ltd., ILR (1944) Bom 302  : (AIR) 1944 Bom 107) (FB). Immediately after this judgment the Central Legislature passed Act XXX of 1943 with restrospective effect validating the Notification and amending the relevant sections of the Companies Act (Ss. 132 151, Art. 107) so as to empower the Government to effect changes in the form of the balance-sheet in the manner in which they had done in January, 1937.6. The next event in order of date relevant to the present context is the report of the Company Law Amendment Committee of the United Kingdom presided over by Mr. Justice Cohen where the entire question of undisclosed reserves was fully discussed. The pros and cons of the question were elaborately considered by the Committee and it is sufficient to refer in this connection to a short passage in the report. In paragraph 101 the problem is thus set outchief matter which has aroused controversy is the question of undisclosed or, as they are frequently called, secret or inner reserves. An undisclosed reserve is commonly created by using profits to write down more than is necessary such assets as investments, freehold and leasehold property or plant and machinery; by creating excessive provisions for bad debts or other contingencies by charging capital expenditure to revenue; or by undervaluing stock in trade. Normally the object of creating an undisclosed reserve is to enable a company to avoid violent fluctuations in its published profits or itscommittee made a number of recommendations several of which were adopted in the U. K. Companies Act of 1948, and those relevant to the point under discussion served to bring the law as to the contents of a balance-sheet of a Banking Company into line with the practice of sound and well managed banks. In India, special legislation in relation to Banking Companies embodying several of these recommendations was enacted in the shape of the Banking Companies Act of 1949 (Act X of 1949). Section 29 of the Act laid down the law in regard, to requirements of the contents of the balance-sheets of banks. The balance-sheet and Profit and Loss account were to be in the form set out in the 3rd Schedule to that Act and sub-s. (3) of that section exempted Banking Companies from the requirements of conforming to the form of balance-sheet and Profit and Loss account of companies registered under the Indian Companies Act; and the Central Government were empowered by sub-s. (4) to amend the form set out in the Schedule by Notifications published in the official Gazette. In Form A which provided the model of a balance sheet and Profit and Loss account in the case of banks, there was not much change as compared to the requirements of the previous law except that in the Profit and Loss account (Form B of the third Schedule) the prevision for bad and doubtful debts was permitted to be excluded from the income so that the amount of bad and doubtful debts did not figure separately on the income side of the profit and loss account. The income as required to be shown was "income (less provision made during the year for bad and doubtful debts)". This last item was modified by a Notification issued under the power conferred by S. 29(4) of the Act in December 1951, so that after amendment the heading "Income in the Profit and Loss Account ran : "Income (less provision made during the year for bad and doubtful debts and other usual and necessary provisions)". Thus so far, as shareholders of Banks and the general public including the customers of the bank were concerned, banks were relieved from the obligation of disclosing the entirety of their reserves as such and also of the extent of bad or doubtful debts and the provision made therefor.7. While the law was in this state disputes arose between the employees of banks all over India and the respective banks with regard to wages, conditions of work etc, which were referred by the Central Government in June, 1949, to an ad hoc Tribunal with Shri K. C. Sen, a retired Judge of the Bombay High Court as Chairman. The Tribunal passed an award but its validity was successfully challenged in this Court in April, 1951, on the ground that all the members of the Tribunal who passed the award were not those who had all inquired into the dispute. Thereafter a fresh Tribunal was appointed in January, 1952, with Shri S. Panchapagesa Sastri, a retired Judge of the High Court of Madras as Chairman. The award of this Tribunal was published in April, 1953, but it is not necessary to state its terms. Appeals against the award were preferred to the Labour Appellate Tribunal both by the banks as well as by workmen. The Appellate Tribunal which heard the appeal consisted of three members with Shri Jeejeebhoy as President.8. The claim of the workers in the appeal before the Appellate Tribunal in great part related to a demand for increased wages and salaries and the main defence of the banks was that they had not the capacity to pay anything beyond what the Sastri Tribunal had granted. The Jeejeebhoy Tribunal set out their difficulties in assessing the plea of incapacity raised by the banks in the context of the provisions of the Banking Companies Act and the form of balance-sheet prescribed thereunder in the following termsthe very outset there is an initial difficulty in arriving at a correct estimate of the financial position of banks. There are two circumstances which militate against our securing a proper insight into the financial state of banks. We refer in particular to (a) the undisclosed or secret reserves and (b) to the manner in which it is permissible in law for a banking company to exhibit its balance sheet.It is not in dispute that banks do have undisclosed or secret reserves which they acquire in a number of ways, and such undisclosed reserves cannot be ascertained from the balance sheet. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . .. .. ...................................... , . .The other difficulty with which we are confronted at the outset is the manner in which a bank is permitted to present its profit and loss account. On the income side the form originally prescribed by the Banking Companies Act required the banks to declare "Income (less provision made during the year for bad and doubtful debts)"; this has now been altered by an amendment made by the Central Government in exercise of the powers conferred under sub-section (4) of section 29 of the Banking Companies Act to read "Income (less provision made during the year for bad and doubtful debts and other usual or necessary provisions)". The effect of this alteration is that: the profits as shown for any particular year are first shown not only of bad and doubtful debts but also of other usual or necessary provisions before being shown in the balance sheet.... .. . .. ... . . ... .. . It may be that these other usual or necessary provisions have been passed by the Board of Directors, and by the auditors of the concern and may even have been scrutinized by the Reserve Bank of India; but it is our duty and function to decide the question of the capacity of a bank to pay and in the absence of important information of this character our estimate of the capacity of a concern to pay must necessarily be incomplete. . . . . . ... .. . .. . . Banks feel that they now have the form of the Banking Companies Act to shield themselves against an enquiry on the subject; but in so far as we are concerned we consider these undisclosed reserves and these appropriations relevant for the purposes of our investigation and in their absence we would have to decide as best as we could from the other materials before us and draw such inferences as justified.It was the contention of the workmen that an Industrial Tribunal had the right in law to compel banks to disclose their secret reserves as well as the amount of "the bad and doubtful debts and other necessary provisions" which had been excluded under the head "income" in the Profit and Loss Account of banks. This matter was agitated by them before this Court in Central Bank of India v. Their Workmen, 1959-2 Lab LJ 205 : (AIR 1960 SC 12  ), being an appeal against the decision of the Labour Appellate Tribunal. In view, however, of the conclusion reached by this Court on other parts of the case it refrained from pronouncing upon the correctness or otherwise of this claim by the workmen.10. The disputes between the employees of banks and the managements, however, continued with the result that on March 21, 1960, the Central Government in exercise of the powers conferred on it by sub-s. (1A) of S. 10 of the Industrial Disputes Act referred the dispute which related several matters to the National Tribunal constituted by a Notification of Government of the same date. K. T. Desai, J., was the Tribunal so appointed. Most of the major banks in the country were made parties to the reference including the Reserve Bank and State Bank of India. After the Tribunal started functioning and after the parties formulated their respective contentions, applications were filed by the Bank Employees Association on June 9, 1960, for directing the respondent-banks to produce before the Tribunal for the purposes of adjudication several documents listed in the applications. Among the items in respect of which production was thus sought were (1) statements showing "the secret reserves in any form" of each bank from 1954 right upto December 31, 1959; and (2) statements showing the provision made "for bad and doubtful debts and other usual and necessary provisions" during the years 1954 to 1959 and the total amounts outstanding in such items in each bank in the said years. The banks filed their reply on July 16 1960. The production of the documents and the information called for on several of the matters including the above two was resisted by the Indian Banks Association (being an association of employers) on the ground that they were by law exempted from disclosure in the interest of the industry and the public and claimed absolute privilege from making the disclosure.11. It was at this stage that the impugned provision was enacted by Parliament as an amendment to the Banking Companies Act. As several of the banks relied upon the impugned provisions in support of their plea that they could not be compelled to disclose either the quantum of their secret reserves or their nature or as regards the provision made in the several years for "bad and doubtful debts and for other reasonable and necessary provision", the bank employees association challenged the constitutional validity of S. 34-A of the Banking Companies Act which, if valid, could have afforded a sufficient answer to the demand for production of the documents in relation to these matters. This objection was argued before the National Tribunal which upheld the Validity of the section. As we have stated earlier, Civil Appeal No. 154 is directed against and challenges the correctness of this decision. The Writ Petitions have been filed by Bank Employees Associations which were not parties to the application for production before the National Tribunal and are intended to support the plea of the appellant in Civil Appeal No. 154 of 1961.

Reasoning:
We are clearly of the opinion that this has to be answered in the negative. An affirmative answer would be contradictory of the scheme underlying the text and the frame of the several fundamental rights which are guaranteed by Part III and particularly by the scheme of the seven freedoms or groups of freedoms guaranteed by sub-cls. (a) to (g) of Cl. (1) of Art. 19.The acceptance of any such argument would mean that while in the case of an individual citizen to whom a right to carry on a trade or business or pursue an occupation is guaranteed . by sub-cl. (g) of Cl. (1) of Art. 19, the validity of a law which imposes any restriction on this guaranteed right would have to be tested by the criteria laid down by Cl. (6) of Art. 19, if however he associated with another and carried on the same activity-say as a partnership, or as a company etc., he obtains larger rights of a different content and with different characteristics which include the right to have the validity of legislation restricting his activities tested by different standards, viz., those laid down in Cl. (4) of Art. 19. This would itself be sufficient to demonstrate that the construction which the learned Counsel for the appellant contends is incorrect, but this position is rendered clearer by the fact that Art. 19-as contrasted with certain other Articles like Arts. 26, 29 and 30-grants rights to the citizen as such, and associations can lay claim to the fundamental rights guaranteed by that Article solely on the basis of their being an aggregation of citizens, i.e., in right of the citizens composing the body. As the stream can rise no higher than the source, associations of citizens cannot lay claim to rights not open to citizens, or claim freedom from restrictions to which the citizens composing it are subject.19. The resulting position may be illustrated thus : If an association were formed for the purpose of carrying on business, the right to form it would be guaranteed by sub-cl. (c) of Cl. (1) of Art. 19 subject to any law restricting that right conforming to Cl. (4) of Art. 19. As regards its business activities, however, and the achievement of the objects for which it was brought into existence, its right would be those guaranteed by sub-cl. (g) of Cl. (1) of Art. 19 subject to any relevant law on the matter conforming to Cl. (6) of Art. 19; while the property which the association acquires or possesses would be protected by sub-cl. (f) of Cl. (1) of Art. 19 subject to legislation within the limits laid down by Cl. (5) of Art. 19.There is no doubt that in the context of the principles underlying the Constitution and the manner in which its Part III has been framed the guarantees embodied in it are to be interpreted in a liberal way so as to subserve the purpose for which the constitution-makers intended them and not in any pedantic or narrow sense, but this however does not imply that the Court is at liberty to give an unnatural and artificial meaning to the expressions used based on ideological considerations. Besides it may be pointed out that both under the Trade Unions Act as well as under the Industrial Disputes Act the expression union signifies not merely a union of workers but includes also unions of employers. If the fulfilment of every object for which a union of workmen was formed were held to be a guaranteed right, it would logically follow that a similar content ought to be given to the same freedom when applied to a union of employers which would result in an absurdity. We are pointing this out not as any conclusive "answer, but to indicate that the theory of learned Counsel that a right to form unions guaranteed by sub-cl. (c) of Cl. (1) of Art. 19 carries with it a fundamental right in the union so formed to achieve every object for which it was formed with the legal consequence that any legislation not falling within Cl. (4) of Art. 19 which might in any way hamper the fulfilment of those objects, should be declared un-constitutional and void under Art. 13 of the Constitution; is not a proposition which could be accepted aswould be seen that if the right to strike were by implication a right guaranteed by sub-cl. (c) of cl. (1) of Art. 19 then the restriction on that right in the interests of the general public, viz., of national economy while perfectly legitimate it tested by the creteria in cl. (6) of Art. 19, might not be capable of being sustained as a reasonable restriction imposed for reasons of morality or public order. On the construction of the Article, therefore, apart from the authorities to which we shall refer presently, we have reached the conclusion that even a very liberal interpretation of sub-cl. (c) of cl. (1) of Art. 19 cannot lead to the conclusion that the trade unions have a guaranteed right to an effective collective bargaining or to strike, either as part of collective bargaining or otherwise. The right to strike or the right to declare a lock-out may be controlled or restricted by appropriate industrial legislation, and the validity of such legislation would have to be tested not with reference to the criteria laid down in cl. (4) of Art. 19 but by totally differentis obvious that freedom of speech" means freedom to speak so as to be heard by others, and therefore to convey ones ideas to others. Similarly the very idea of freedom of expression necessarily connotes that what one has a right to express may be communicated to others. Unless therefore the freedom guaranteed by sub-cl. (a) of cl. (1) of Art. 19 were read as confined to the right to speak to oneself or to express his ideas to himself, which obviously they could not mean, the guaranteed freedom would mean freedom to address others, and of conveying to others ones ideas by printed word, viz., freedom of circulation. We do not see, therefore, any analogy between the case which was considered by this Court in Romesh Thappars 1950 SCR 594 : (AIR 1950 SC 124  ), case and the one beforethe two decisions referred to the learned Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States were not construing the content of a provision on the lines of Art. 19(1) (c), for in America, the right of association is not any specifically guaranteed right, but has been derived by judicial interpretation of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. But apart from this the legislation there impugned was one which directly affected the formation of the association and in that sense may be hit by the terms of sub-cl. (c) of Cl. (1) of Art. 19 if statutes with similar purpose were enacted in India. The decisions cited are no authority for the second step in the argument for which they werehave, therefore, reached the conclusion that the right guaranteed by sub-cl. (c) of Cl. (1) of Art. 19 does not carry with it a concomitant right that the unions formed for protecting the interests of labour shall achieve the purpose for which they were brought into existence, such that any interference to such achievement by the law of the land would be unconstitutional unless the same could be justified as in the interests of public order or morality. In our opinion, the right guaranteed under sub-cl. (c) of Cl. (1) of Art. 19 extends to the formation of an association and in so far as the activities of the association are concerned or as regards the steps which the union might take to achieve the purpose of its creation, they are subject to such laws as might be framed and that the validity of such laws is not to be tested by reference to the criteria to be found in Cl. [(4) of Art. 19 of thedispute between the parties in relation either to wages, bonus or other amenities or perquisites which involve financial obligations on the part of the employer remain even after the impugned provision was enacted, with the adjudicator and he alone determines the rights of the parties subject to the provisions of the Industrial law or other relevant legislation, and the relief which he could award to the employees remains the same. The adjudicator alone determines the capacity of the industry to pay or to bear the enhanced cost. The only result of S. 34-A is that in regard to two items, viz., secret reserves and the provision made by banks "for bad and doubtful debts and other necessary provisions", the reasonable quantum which would be available for being taken into account by the adjudicator would be estimated and determined by an expert body which is a governmental authority or practically a department of Government, viz., the Reserve Bank of India which is entrusted by law with duty of maintaining the credit structure of thequestion was how far information which in the interests of national economy the banks were entitled to withhold from their shareholders and the general public, was to be made available for determining the capacity of the banks to pay their employees. It was in these circumstances that the impugned legislation was enacted which while preserving industrial adjudication in respect of disputes between the banks and their employees, entrusted the duty of determining the surplus reserve which could be taken into account as part of the assets for determining capacity to pay, to the Reserve Bank. Thus understood there does not appear to be anything unreasonable in the solution which the impugned legislation haswe have pointed out already, the impugned legislation merely carries out to its logical conclusion the effect of the changes in the form of the balance-sheet and Profit and Loss accounts of Banks which starting in 1927 culminated in the notification dated December 22, 1951 under S. 29(4) of the Banking Companies Act amending the Forms appended to that Act. If the construction of the "right to form unions under sub-cl. (c) of Cl. (1) of Art. 19 put forward by learned Counsel for impugning the validity of the enactment is negatived, then subject to the point about Art. 14 which we shall examine presently, legislative, competence being conceded there could be no legal objection to its validity. Objections based on colourable legislation have relevance only in situations when the power of the legislature is restricted to particular topics, and an attempt is made to escape legal fetters imposed on its powers by resorting to forms of legislation calculated to mask the real subject-matter. No such problem exists in the present case and it is common ground that once the legislation passes the test of the fundamental rights guaranteed by Part III, legisative competence not being in dispute, its validity is beyond cavil. The question whether the secrecy assured by S. 21 of the Industrial Disputes Act is or is not sufficient to protect the interests of the Banks, is a matter of legislative policy-and is for Parliament alone-and even the fact that the Court could be persuaded that the existing law is sufficient would be no ground for invalidating the impugned legislation. When the end which the legislature seeks to achieve, viz., secrecy is competent, the enquiry as to ultra vires stops. Whether less than what was done might have been enough, whether more drastic provision was made than occasion demanded, whether the same purposes could have been achieved by provisions differently framed or by other means, these are wholly irrelevant considerations for testing the validity of the law.They do not touch or concern the ambit of the power but only the manner of its exercise, and once the provisions of Part III of the Constitution are out of the way, the validity of the legislation is not open towould thus be seen that though the Banking Companies Act applied to every banking company, it is only those banks whose operations extended beyond one State that were brought within the scope of the definition of a "banking company" under the Industrial Disputes Act. The result of that was that Banking Companies not having branches in more than one State would be an industry so as to be within the Industrial Disputes Act but not "a banking company" within its definition. In the circumstances learned Counsel is right in his submission that such banking companies as are not within the definition of "a banking company" under the Industrial Disputes Act would not be entitled to claim the protection from disclosure conferred on "banking companies" by the impugned provision. This, however, is no ground for holding the legislation invalid. In the first place, the complaint of discrimination is not by the banks who are not on the terms of S. 34A entitled to the protection from disclosure of their reserves, etc. Secondly it is common ground that 95 per cent. of the banking business in this country is in the hands of Banks which are within the definition of "banking companies" under S. 2(b) (b) of the Industrial Disputes Act. Besides, these banks employ over 80,000 out of the 90,000 bank-employees. In the circumstances and seeing that the injury to the credit structure will only be by the disclosure of the reserves etc. of the banks of this class, there is sufficient rational connection and basis for classification to justify the differentiation. The fact that the legislation does not cover every Banking Company is therefore no ground for holding the provision to be discriminatory within Art. 14.37. The last point about the exclusion of the Reserve Bank of India from the operation of S. 34A(2) has also no substance. In the very nature of things and on the scheme of the provision the Reserve Bank could not but be excluded from sub-s. (3) of the impugned provision. In determining what reserves could properly be taken into account, the Reserve Bank would be discharging not any quasi-judicial but only an administrative function, determining this matter with reference to uniform business principles and it therefore appears to us that there is no impropriety in its findings being final even in regard to itself. A submission on similar lines about bias was also made in relation to the impact of the impugned provision in so far as it related to the industrial disputes between the State Bank of India and its employees. It was pointed out to us that the Reserve Bank of India owned practically the entirety of the share-capital of the State Bank of India, with the result that the Reserve Bank was pecuniarily and vitially interested in supporting the State Bank as against the latters employees in any industrial dispute and that the element of bias which the situation involved would invalidate the impugned provision. We consider this argument without force. If, as we have held, the impugned provision is valid and does not violate any of the freedoms guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution in regard to the employees of the Reserve Bank, the challenge to the impugned provision cannot obviously be successful in the case of the employees of the State Bank.38. As we have stated earlier, though the arguments before us ranged on a very wide ground, we have not thought it necessary to deal with all of them because in view of our conclusions on the crucial points in the case the others which were subject of debate before us did not arise for consideration.