Case: India General Navigation and Railway Company, Limited, and Another Vs. Their Workmen

The termination of services of 56 workers by appellant 1, the India General Navigation and Railway Company, Ltd., led to an industrial dispute which was referred to the presiding officer of the industrial tribunal, Assam, for his adjudication, by the Governor of Assam under S.10(1) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (14 of 1947) (hereinafter called the Act). The two issues which were ther of the reference were :(1) whether the management of Rivers Steam Navigation and India General Navigation and Railway Company, Ltd., Kokilamukh Agency, Neamati, are justified in terminating the services of 56 workers of Subansirimukh; and(2) are they entitled to reinstatement with continuity of service and with full wages for the period of unemployment and/or any other relief ?Appellant 1 urged before the tribunal that the 56 workers were not its employees, and in the alternative, is alleged that the termination of services of such 56 workmen was the result of closure of appellant 1s business at Subansirimukh Ghat and as such, the workmen concerned were entitled to no relief.The tribunal has found that the 56 workmen in question were the employees of appellant 1. It has held that the closure was bona fide and real. Even so, it has found that each worker was entitled to compensation equivalent to fifteen days average pay for every completed year of service or any part thereof in excess of six months, under. (1) of S.25FFF of the Act. It is against this award that appellant 1 has come to this Court by special leave

Court's reasoning:
2. It is clear that the question raised by the appellant is a pure question of fact, the decision of which depends on the appreciation of evidence adduced by the parties before the tribunal. This court does not generally interfere with finding of fact while dealing with appeals in industrial matters brought before it under Art. 136 of the Constitution. But, in the present case, we are satisfied that the appellant is entitled to claim that the award should be reversed, because the finding recorded by the tribunal on the question of fact referred to it is patently and palpably erroneous. Besides, there is considerable force in the contention raised by the appellant that if the reasoning adopted by the tribunal in upholding Pauls claim in the present proceedings is not revered, it may have a serious impact on a large number of similar cases of retirement which would arise from year to year in the undertaking of the appellant. That at why we have heard the parties on the merits and have come to the conclusion that the award must be set aside.The appellant carries on business of inland water transport in North East India and for the purpose of its business, it posts its workmen at different places including the district of Cachar in the state ofappears that as a result of an agreement between the appellant and thethe age of retirement for the workmen in the employment of the appellant has a scheme of 60In the present case no such plea was made by Paul and the appellant had no reason to doubt the correctness of the declaration made by Paul in regard to the date of his birth.It is significant that during the proceedings before the tribunal, Paul himself did not make any affidavit, nor did he step into theto explain the admission made by him in the said declaration. He might have given his version and set out the reasons how and why he made a wrong statement in the said declaration. Such a course has not been adopted by him. If a party makes an admission about a fact and erroneously made, it is obviously necessary that the party must make a statement on oath giving his explanation as to how the erroneous statement came to be made. This aspect of the matter has been completely ignored by the tribunal. The tribunal was persuaded to accept the respondents contention that the date of birth given by Paul in the declaration in question must have been given as a matter of guess without any direct evidence in his possession. This plea cannot obviously be accepted, because Paul has given not only the date of his birth, but has also stated what day it was and calendar shows that 3 September, 1899 was in fact a Sunday as stated by Paul in his declaration.Assuming that Paul gave his particular date as the date of his birth from memory, it is difficult to imagine that this memory could have told him what day it was. Therefore, it is plain that both the date and the day of his birth were given by Paul from some record in his possession. The failure of Paul to explain how he came to mention the said date and day thus assumes considerate significance.The respondent, however, relied upon the evidence of Sudhir Kumar Ray Chowdhury who was the Assistant Teacher in Nilmoni High School.This teacher produced an extract from the school register which showed that when S. C. Paul entered the said school on 16 January, 1918 his age was shown as 15 years 2 months and 14 days. It is on this entry that the respondent relied in support of its plea that Paul was born on November 1, 1902. The tribunal has accepted this evidence. In doing so, however, the tribunal has overlooked the important fact that the teacher who produced this extract joined the school in 1946, and all that he purported to do was to prove the handwriting of Bhattacharya and thereby show that the entry in question had been made by Bhattacharya. Bhattacharya was the headmaster of the school in 1918. The Chowdhury who gave evidence was a lad of six years in 1918 and he has obviously no personal knowledge as to what happened in 1918. The obvious question which the tribunal should have asked itself was, what is the evidence to show that S. C. Paul whose age is shown to have been 15 years 2 moths and 14 days on 16 January, 1918 when the admitted in the school, is the very person with whose case the tribunal is dealing. In other words the identity of the boy who was admitted in the school on that date with the workmen S. C. Paul with whom we are concerned has not been established at all. The extract produced by Chowdhury can afford no assistance whatever in establishing the identity of the boy with the present workman if only the tribunal had considered this obvious point, it would not have accepted the said extract in preference to the declaration made by Paul when he joined the said provident fund institution. If the workman himself had appeared and had taken the oath that he had joined the school in 1918 or had produced some other evidence to prove that fact, it may have been another matter. Therefore, it seems to us that on the record, it is impossible to hold that the appellant was not justified in retiring Paul on the basis that he was born on September 3, 1999. As a matter of fact, the order of retirement came into force as from 1 January, 1961 which means that Paul was allowed to work for some time more after he had attained the age of superannuation. As we have already indicated, the appellant has to deal with several cases of superannuation from year to year and we felt satisfied that unless the approach adopted by the tribunal in dealing with the present case was corrected, the appellant may have to face difficulties in dealing with similar problems in future. That is the main reason why we thought it necessary to interfere with the order passed by the tribunal in the present case.