Case: Birla Cotton Spinning &amp; Weaving Mills Ltd Vs. Workmen &amp; Others

1. This appeal by special leave arises out of an industrial dispute between the Birla Cotton Spinning and Weaving Mills Limited (hereinafter called the Appellant) and its workmen. A large number of matters were referred for adjudication to the industrial tribunal but in the present appeal we are concerned with two, namely, (i) whether the wages require to be increased and standardised, and what directions are necessary in this respect, and (ii) whether any of the workmen doing the work of fancy jobbers should be designated and paid accordingly. The first point has however been confined to mistries and line jobbers only as the other operatives were covered by another award in another reference (No. ID 52 of 1957) between the same parties, which was decided earlier by this tribunal. That award came in appeal to this Court and the decision of this Court is reported in Management of Birla Cotton Spinning and Weaving Mills Ltd. v. Its Workmen, AIR 1961 SC 1179  . This Court had set aside the earlier award and sent the case back to the tribunal to proceed in the manner indicated in that judgment. We are told that that matter has ended in a compromise between the parties.

Reasoning: We are of opinion that on the same reasoning the present argument that the reference when it was made was incompetent because of the Dulat award being still in force, must fail and the contention of this head isare of opinion that the tribunal was right in holding that it was only shortly before the reference that those workmen who used to be called fancy jobbers began to be designated as assistant fancy jobbers. The tribunal has considered the entire evidence on this point and we are in agreement with the view expressed by it, namely that the assistant fancy jobbers should be designated as fancy jobbers as before and the recent innovation calling them assistant fancy jobbers was only a device to depress the status of this class of workmen. The contention therefore, on this head must alsoappears that the tribunal merely followed its earlier award in ID 52 of 1957 when it proceeded to apply the Bombay standardisation scheme to mistries and line jobbers as well as fancy jobbers. That award, as we have pointed out, was set aside by this Court in the earlier judgment on various grounds. It is not necessary for us to repeat the reasons which impelled this Court in the earlier appeal to set aside the award in ID 52 of 1957. Those reasons in our opinion apply with full force to the present award also in so far as it introduces the Bombay standardisation scheme for the workmen concerned in the present dispute. In addition we may point out that the appellant wanted to produce evidence with respect to the Bombay standardisation scheme and to summon two witnesses from Bombay and Kanpur with respect to the working of that scheme; but the tribunal by its order dated 6-1-1958, held that it was not necessary to examine those witnesses in view of the conditions obtaining in Delhi, the region with which it was concerned. But even though the tribunal thus refused to examine evidence with respect to the working of the Bombay standardisation scheme it went on to adopt that scheme in its entirety without any modification when it came to make its award, in view of its earlier award. We are of opinion that it was not fair for the tribunal to shut out evidence with respect to the working of the Bombay standardisation scheme which the appellant wanted to produce and then apply that scheme without any modification to thestatement in our opinion is not borne out by the evidence of the two witnesses produced by the workmen from those two mills. Manoharlal (W. W. 19), a labour officer of the Swantantra Bharat Mills, was examined in this connection. He stated that for workers the Swatantra Bharat Mills had followed the Bombay standardisation scheme in the matter of payment of wages on voluntary basis but not for mistries and jobbers. This statement was apparently treated by the tribunal as meaning that the Bombay standardisation scheme was applicable to mistries and jobbers though Manohar Lal stated exactly the opposite. It is true that Manoharlal stated that for certain categories of mistries and jobbers the Swatantra Bharat Mills paid more than what the Bombay standardisation scheme gave to such categories; but that does not mean that the Bombay standardisation scheme as such was applicable to all mistries and jobbers in the Swatantra Bharat Mills. The second witness was B. L. Saxena, the labour officer in the Delhi Cloth Mills. He stated that the wages of line jobbers and mistries were more in certain cases and in some cases at par with the wages in the Bombay standardisation scheme. But he also stated that the line jobbers and mistries in the Delhi Cloth Mills had not been brought under the Bombay standardisation scheme. It appears from the evidence of both these witnesses that there is no fixed grade for mistries and jobbers and each one gets what may be called his own pay. Therefore, in some cases the pay which a jobber or a mistry gets may be higher or may be equal to the wages in the standardisation scheme. But this does not mean that the Bombay standardisation scheme as such has been applied to mistries and jobbers in the other two mills in Delhi. The tribunal was therefore, wrong even on a comparison of the other two mills in Delhi to hold that the Bombay standardisation scheme should be applied to the appellant-mills also.9. The tribunals award with respect to fancy jobbers would also show how the manner in which the tribunal dealt with the application of the Bombay standardisation scheme to the appellant-mills has resulted in unfairness. After having rightly held that the assistant fancy jobbers should be designated as fancy jobbers, the tribunal went on to award that the fancy jobbers so designated should be paid according to the Bombay standardisation scheme without apparently examining that scheme. A copy of that scheme has been produced before us and it shows that the Bombay scheme envisages three categories of workers in what is called fancy work, namely head fancy jobber, fancy jobber and assistant fancy jobbers. Therefore, before the tribunal decided to apply the Bombay standardisation scheme it was necessary to compare the work done by the fancy jobbers in the appellant-mills with the work done by either the fancy jobber or assistant fancy jobber in the Bombay standardisation scheme and then decide whether they would come under the designation of fancy jobbers or assistant fancy jobbers under the Bombay standardisation scheme or some under one and some under the other. We are therefore, of opinion that the manner in which the case has been dealt with by the tribunal shows as was pointed out in the earlier case also, that it was dealt with in a perfunctory way, though in this case the tribunal had the excuse to follow its own award in the earlier case. We are however of opinion that if the Bombay standardisation scheme is to be applied to the appellant-mills with respect to the workmen concerned in the present appeal, the tribunal should go into the matter carefully again on the lines indicated by this Court in its earlier judgment and then decide whether the Bombay standardisation scheme as a whole should be applied to the appellant-mills with respect to the workmen concerned in the present dispute or whether there should be any modification of that scheme in view of differences between the conditions in Bombay and the conditions in Delhi. This applies to all the workmen concerned in this appeal, i.e., the line-jobbers, mistries and fancy jobbers. We are therefore, of opinion that this appeal must be allowed and the case sent back to the tribunal for reconsideration on the lines indicated above and in accordance with the earlier judgment of thisto the direction by the tribunal that a joint committee should be appointed to go into what is called anomalies, it is enough to refer to what was said by this Court in the earlier judgment (supra) where a similar direction had been made. It was pointed out there that by making the direction the tribunal had left a part of the dispute to be resolved by the parties themselves, so that the tribunal had not done what it was expected to do itself under the terms of reference. We set aside this direction and order that the tribunal should go into this matter itself with the assistance of assessors, if it considers that necessary, before it applies the Bombay standardisation scheme either in its entirety or with modification to the workmen concerned in the appellant-mills.There can be no dispute as to the validity of these principles and their soundness will be clear from the facts of that case. In that case a standardisation scheme had been brought into force in 1948. In 1951, one of the mills governed by the standardisation scheme introduced a new section the wages in which were covered by the standardization scheme. However, the wages in the new section fixed by the said mill were higher than those fixed by the standardisation scheme. Later in 1953, the mills gave notice to the workmen reducing the wages fixed in 1951 so as to conform to the wages laid down in the standardisation scheme. This was objected to by the workmen whose wages were reduced and that is how the dispute arose. The High Court held in those circumstances that in view of the fact that the standardisation scheme was in force from 1948, it was not open to the employer to give higher wages than those fixed in the standardisation scheme in 1951 because it was of the essence of the standardisation scheme that the wages for the same work should be equal and that where higher wages had been paid than those fixed in the standardisation scheme they should be reduced to that level. That case however was not concerned with protection of the wages of individuals who might be getting more than what is provided in the standardisation scheme at the time when it is brought into force. It is in this context that the observations made by the High Court have to be understood and in that context the observations laying down the principles behind a standardisation scheme are, if we may say so with respect,seems to us that it would not be against the basic principle of standardisation, to which this Court referred in the earlier case (supra) to protect the wages of individual workmen who might be getting more than the wages fixed in the standardisation scheme at the time when such a scheme is brought into force. It will be for the tribunal to decide whether it will protect these individual workmen or not.If it gives no direction for protection to individual workmen, they will not be protected and their wages will have to be lowered in case they are higher than those fixed in the standardisation scheme. But if the tribunal considers that it will be more in consonance with justice to protect the wages of individual workmen it may give a direction to that effect, even though they may be more than the wages fixed in the standardisation scheme. In such a case three conditions will always have to be borne in mind. In the first place, there can be no further raising of the wages of these protected workmen by the management after the standardisation scheme comes into force, for any such further rise will be against the principle of standardisation. In the second place, if the standardisation scheme fixes incremental scale of wages and if the protected workman is getting a wage which is between the minimum and the maximum and he is not entitled in accordance with the length of his service to that wage but something less in the grade, the extra amount that he may be getting will have to be absorbed in future increments till he is properly fitted in in the incremental scale according to the length of service. Thirdly, when any workmans service comes to an end for any reason whatsoever, no other employee whether new or old would be entitled to claim the pay which the outgoing employee was getting on ground that a vacancy with that higher pay has arisen. Subject to these three conditions it may be open to a tribunal to protect the wages of individual workmen even though he may be getting higher wages than those fixed in a standardisation scheme at the time when the scheme isin our opinion is not protection of individual workmen but protection of wages, which may be higher than those fixed in the standardisation scheme. This in our opinion cannot be done as it is against the basic principles of a standardisation scheme as observed in the earlier case.The result of this direction by the tribunal would be that a particular post carrying with it higher wages will remain protected so that when the individual who may be getting that pay at the time the standardisation scheme comes into force is no more employed, the other workmen may be able to claim those wages on the ground that the wages have been protected.The proper way of giving protection, if the Tribunal thinks that justice demands that individuals who are getting higher wages than those fixed under a standardisation scheme should be protected, is to direct that the wages of such individuals should be fixed according to the standardisation scheme, and the difference, if any, between their wages and the standardised wages should be paid to them as personal pay so long as they are in service. As soon as such an individual goes out of service, another coming in his place will not be entitled to the personal pay the outgoing workman was getting and will be fixed in the standardisation scheme. The direction however of the tribunal in this case is capable of being read not for the protection of individuals but for the protection of wages, and this in our opinion cannot be done in view of the basic principles governing a standardisation scheme. We are therefore, of opinion that the direction for the protection of existing wages given in the form in which it has been given by the tribunal must be set aside. At the same time we leave it to the tribunal to decide if it considers it just when the matter goes back to it for reconsideration whether individual workmen should be protected, even in case a standardisation scheme is introduced, in the manner we have indicated above.