Case: Gujarat State Cooperative Land Development Bank Limited Vs. P. R. Manded and Others

The appellant is the Gujarat State Cooperative Land Development Bank Ltd. (hereafter referred to as the Bank). It is a Society registered under the Bombay Cooperative Societies Act, 1925, as applicable to the erstwhile State of Saurashtra. According to the appellants writ petition, it is doing banking business. It has 127 Branches spread all over the State of Gujarat. One of its Branches is in Dasada, Surendranagar District. The Head Office of the Bank is at AhmedabadThe second respondent, Babu Bhai Negracha, was serving as an Additional Supervisor in the Dasada Branch of the Bank. His ser vices were terminated by an order, dated February 21, 1962, by giving him one months pay in lieu of notice under Staff Regulation No. 15The Gujarat Cooperative Societies Act, 1961, came into force from May 1, 1962, and the appellant-Bank , being a Society, under the Cooperative Societies Act, came to be governed by the said ActBy Notification No. BIR-1362-5-H, dated March 2, 1963, published in the Gujarat Gazette in March 1963, the Government of Gujarat directed under Section 2(4) ofthe Bombay Industrial Relations Act, 1946 (Bombay Act 11 of 1947) that all the provisions of the said Act shall apply with effect from March 15, 1963 to the business of banking by Cooperative Banks in the Saurashtra and Kutch areas of the State, registered and deemed to be registered under the Gujarat Cooperative Societies Act, 1961Aggrieved by the termination of his service, the second respondent approached the appellants Dasadas Branch by a letter, dated August 20, 1962, stating that since his services were terminated illegally by way of victimisation, he should be reinstated in the serviceThereafter, the second respondent filed an application in the Labour Court at Rajkot, alleging that his service had been illegally and maliciously terminated as an act of victimisation on account of his trade union activities. He prayed for setting aside the order of his termination of service and for reinstatement with full back wages.The Bank filed a written statement, raising a preliminary objection thatthe Bombay Industrial Relations Act, 1946, under which the application was made by the respondent, was not applicable to its case, as it was a Cooperative Society governed by the Gujarat Co-operative Societies Act, under which only the Registrar or his nominee 1027 had jurisdiction to decide the dispute, and the Labour Court had no jurisdiction to entertain and decide the application of the second respondentBy its Order, dated June 11, 1963, the Labour Court overruled this objection and held that it had jurisdiction to hear the applicationThe Bank then filed a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution in the High Court to challenge t he Order of the Labour Court. The High Court by a common judgment dated August 25, 1967 dismissed the writ petition, but in view of the importance of the question of law involved, granted a certificate of fitness for appeal to this CourtOn the strength of that certificate, the Bank has come in appeal before us against the aforesaid judgment of the High CourtIn this Court on January 22, 1969, the Bank made an application for leave to urge as additional ground, namely, that the Bank is not doing banking business, i.e. accepting for the purpose of lending or investment of deposits of money from the public, repayable on demand or otherwise, and withdrawable by cheque, draft, order or otherwise as defined in Section 5, Clauses (b) and (c) of the Banking Companies Act, 1949; and that this being the true position, the Notification No. DIR-1362-IV-H dated March 2, 1963, published in the Gujarat Government Gazette dated March 7, 1963, under Section 2(4) ofthe Bombay Industrial Relations Act, 1946 (Bombay Act XI of 1947) is not applicable to the appellant. This application was strenuously opposed by Shri Ram Reddy, who is assisting the Court as amicus curiae on behalf of respondent 2, who has not been able to appear and defend himself in this appeal.We have declined permission to raise this new plea for the first time in this Court, for these reasons: (i) It is much too belated; (ii) It stands in direct contradiction to the position taken by the appellant in its writ petition and the affidavit in support thereof filed in the High Court. Therein, the appellant had categorically pleaded: "The petitioner is a Society registered under the Bombay Cooperative Societies Act, 192 5 (Bombay Act VII of 1925)....and is engaged in the business of banking." ( iii) It is not a purely legal plea but a mixed plea of law and fact, and cannot be determined on the basis of material already on the recordWe, therefore, take it that the appellant is a Cooperative Society engaged in the business of banking and, as such,the Bombay Industrial Relations Act, 1946 is applicable to it by virtue of the aforesaid Notification dated March 2, 1963, issued by the State Government under Section 2(4) of that Act.

Reasoning: It will be seen that Section 166, in terms, bars the jurisdiction only of Civil or Revenue Court, and not of the Labour Court or any Industrial Tribunal constituted under the B.I.R. Act or Industrial Disputes Act to adjudicate industrial disputes. It is clear that the Legislature never intended to oust the jurisdiction of the Labour Court or the Industrial Tribunal to determine claims and industrial disputes which cannot be adjudicated by the ordinary Civil CourtsThe Labour Court is competent to grant the relief of reinstatement claimed by the respondent, while in view of Section 21(b) of the Specific Relief Act, then in force, the Civil Court was not competent to grant that relief.The dispute was raised by the second respondent by writing an approach letter to his employer, the appellant, as required by the Bombay Industrial Relations Act. In substance, it was an industrial dispute. It was not restricted to a claim under the contract or agreement of employment. The Civil Court cannot grant the reliefs claimed by the second respondent. As rightly submitted by Mr. Rama Reddy, if a Court is incapable of granting the relief claimed, normally, the proper construction would be that it is incompetent to deal with the matterIn the light of the above discussion, the conclusion is inescapable that the expression "any dispute" referred to in Section 54 of the 1925 Act/Section 96 of the 1961 Act, does not cover a dispute of the kind raised by respondent 2 against the appellant-BankA similar argument was advanced before this Court in Cooperative Central Banks Case, ibid, and was repelled inter alia, with the reasoning that the bye-laws of the Bank, containing the conditions of service were in the nature of a contract between the Bank and its employees and a change of such bye-laws, embodying the conditions of employment, " could not possibly be directed by the Registrar where, under s. 62 (4) of the (ANDHRA) Act, he is specifically required to decide the dispute referred to him in accordance with the provisions of the bye-laws". It was further observed that a dispute referred to the Registrar can even be transferred for disposal to a person who may have been invested with powers in that behalf, or may be referred for disposal to an arbitrator. But neither the Registrar nor his nominee will be competent to grant the relief requiring a change in the service conditions of the employees, under section 62 of the Andhra Act. Such a relief could be granted only by the Industrial Tribunal which under the Industrial Disputes Act, has the jurisdiction even to vary contracts of service between an employer and employees. This reasoning is applicable mutatis mutandis to the instant case.