Case: Balvantrai Chimanlal Trivedi Vs. M.N. Nagrashna

1. This is an appeal by special leave against the judgment of the Bombay High Court by which the writ petition filed by the appellant was summarily dismissed. The brief facts necessary for the purpose of this appeal are these: The appellant is a cotton mill in Ahmedabad. Respondents Nos. 2(a) to 2(n) are the fourteen employees of the appellant designated asUnder the Bombay Industrial Disputes Act, 1938, (since repealed by the Bombay Industrial Relations Act, No. XI of 1947, which came into force on April 15, 1947), the Registrar had made a notification recognising various occupations in cotton textile mills. Folders were put in group F of this notification while clerks were put in group H. In December 1946, the Textile Labour Association of Ahmedabad gave a notice of change to theAssociation for standardisation of wages of the various occupations in the cotton textile industry. Thereupon a reference was made by the State Government in June 1947 to the industrial Court, which, by the first part of its award, fixed wages forng work at Rs.per mensem. Later the same Court gave the second part of its award relating to clerks in October 1948. In April 1949, the Textile Labour Association gave a notice terminating the award under S. 116 of the Bombay Industrial Relations Act and the award came to an end in June 1949. Thereafter under S. 42(2) of the Bombay Industrial Relations Act, there was a notice of change by the Textile Labour Association for revision of pay scales. In pursuance of this notice there was an agreement between the AhmedabadAssociation and the Textile Labour Association on June 22, 1949. This agreement was to apply to all the cotton mills in Ahmedabad. Cl. (4) of this agreement provided pay scales for clerks who were divided into three categories. Then came Cl. (5) with which we are concerned in thisruns as under :"A separate scale for those of the employees who occupy the position lower than that of aclerk but higher than that of an operative will be provided as underis scale will be applicable in case of ticket boys, ticket checkers, coupon sellers, tally boys, production checkers, thread counters, cloth measurers, departments, and those who have not been included above but who can properly fall under the abovehowever, not being specifically mentioned in Cl. (5) continued to be paid Rs.per month as fixed by the first part of the award of the Industrial Court referred to above. Consequently in January 1950, the fourteen respondents who areapplied under S. 79 of the Bombay Industrial Relations Act to the labour Court that they were not being paid the grade fixed by cl. (5) of the agreement and this amounted to an unlawful change by the employer and that it should be ordered to withdraw such an illegal change. This application was dismissed by the labour Court in April 1952. It was of opinion that the evidence showed beyond all doubt that the applicants before it were operatives and could not be considered as clerks who were doing routine work of writing, copying or making calculations. There was an obvious error in this view of the labour Court for thehad not claimed before it that they were clerks, for in that case they would have claimed wages under cl. (4) of the agreement; their case was that they held an intermediate position between clerks and operatives and were thus covered by cl. (5) which provided for such an intermediate grade. However, no further steps were taken by theagainst this order of the labour Court, by way of appeal or otherwise. In the meantime, theapplied under S. 116A of the Bombay Industrial Relations Act for modification of the award of the industrial Court relating to folders. This application was withdrawn on April, 22, 1953, as the parties had decided that the dispute would be settled through private arbitration and was in consequence dismissed. This was followed by private arbitration and the arbitrators rejected the demand for enhancement of wages ofon November 27, 1953. Having failed before the arbitrators also, themade an application before the Authority under the Payment of Wages Act (hereinafter called the Authority) in April 1954. In that application they claimed that they were governed by cl. (5) of the agreement and were entitled, in view of their duties, to a properly adjusted wage in the scale mentioned in that clause, but in spite of this they were only being paid wages at the rate of Rs.per mensem which were less than they were entitled to. They therefore prayed that they might be allowed Rs. 1,863 as wages withheld for the period from September 1953 to February 1954. The application was opposed by the appellant and it raised all kinds of objections, technical and otherwise. The main objections, however, were two, namely :(1) that the Authority had no jurisdiction to entertain such an application; and (2) that in view of the earlier decisions of the industrial Court in 1948 and the labour Court in 1952, the folders were estopped from making a claim for wages under cl. (5) of the agreement. The Authority held that it had jurisdiction to decide the application and that there was no question of any estoppel. It then went into the merits and came to the conclusion, looking to the duties performed by the folders, that they were clearly covered by cl. (5) of the agreement. It further held that the claim for withheld wages for September 1953 was barred by limitation and therefore ordered payment of Rs.as delayed wages from October 1953 to February 1954.2. Aggrieved by this decision, the appellant filed a writ petition in the High Court in April 1955. The High Court dismissed the petition summarily and also dismissed the application for a certificate to appeal to this Court. Thereupon the appellant applied to this Court for special leave to appeal which was granted; and that is how the matter has come up before us.

Reasoning: 4. We have heard the learned counsel for the parties at length, and there appears to be some force in the contention of the appellant so far as the jurisdiction of the Authority is concerned; but we do not propose to decide this question of jurisdiction in the instant case because we have in addition to the determination of the Authority the fact that the appellant went to the High Court by a writ petition against the decision of the Authority and its petition was dismissed by the High Court. The present appeal is not directly from the judgment of the Authority but is from the order of the High Court dismissing the writ petition. Whatever infirmities might have attached to the order of the Authority, there would in our opinion be no reason to interfere with the order of the High Court dismissing the writ petition, if we come to the conclusion that the order passed by the Authority in this case has not resulted in any failure of justice. As we have pointed out above, the contention of thein this case has all along been that they were entitled to a wage scale in accordance with cl. (5) of the agreement. They never claimed that they were clerks. As such their claim was for the intermediate grade between clerks and operatives, which was specifically provided for in cl. (5) of the agreement. The agreement came after the decision of the industrial Court in 1948 and must be deemed to have varied that decision by mutual consent to the extent to which it did so. Thus there is no question of estoppel. When therefore theapplied to the labour Court to be placed in the grade fixed by cl. (5) of the agreement, they were entitled to expect that the labour Court would consider the question whether they could be placed, in view of the nature of their duties, in the intermediate grade; but the labour Courts judgment of April 1952 seems to have gone on a misapprehension of the demand of theIt seems to have thought that thewere claiming to be treated as clerks which they were not. Their claim was for the intermediate grade between clerks and operatives and this aspect of the matter was not fully appreciated by the labour Court, though it felt that there appeared to be some conflict between the award of the industrial Court and the agreement. The matter was considered at length on merits by the Authority and it came to the conclusion, after examining the nature of the work done by thethat though they might not beclerks they were entitled to the intermediate grade. We are of opinion that this view of the Authority issimilar circumstances this Court refused to interfere and did not go into the question of jurisdiction on the ground that this Court could refuse interference unless it was satisfied that the justice of the case required it : see A. M. Allison v. B. L. Sen, (1957) SCR 359: ((S) AIR 1957 SC 227  ).On a parity of reasoning we are of opinion that as we are not satisfied that the justice of the case requires interference in the circumstances, we should refuse to interfere with the order of the High Court dismissing the writ petition of the appellant.