Case: K.C. P. Employees' Association, Madras Vs. Management Of K. C. P. Ltd., Madras

. A thumbnail sketch of the facts :3. The K.C.P. Limited, a public limited company, carries on three business adventures, viz., manufacture of sugar, of cement and of heavy engineering machinery. The concerned factories are in three different places in South India and employ workmen on terms in three different units. We are directly concerned with the engineering unit known as the Central Workshops run at Tiruvottiyur, Madras. When the payment of Bonus Act, 1965 came into force the workmen of this unit, which was financially faring ill unlike the other two sister units, demanded bonus on the footing that the three different undertakings must be treated as one composite establishment and on the basis of the overall profits, bonus must be reckoned as provided in the Act. The respondents demurred on the ground that the Central Workshop was a separate undertaking to which the proviso to S. 3 applied and consequently the claim for bonus on the basis of a single establishment was untenably. Although the concerned unit was perhaps a losing proposition for the relevant years, (we do not know for certain) the Tribunal upheld the claim of the workman for both the years, but the two awards were challenged, by writ petition, in the High Court. The award relating to5 was upheld by a single Judge of the High Court who took the view that since all the three units, though divergent and located in different places, were owned by the same company and, therefore, without more, were covered by the main part of S. 3 and the proviso stood repelled. Two other questions, which had engaged the attention of the Tribunal, were scantily dealt with, the findings, of one may call them so, being adverse to the workmen. The management duly carried on appeal before a Division Bench of that Court which also called up and heard the writ petition against the award relating to the year. Both the awards were set aside, the holdings on the substantial points being adverse to the workmen. However, certainp inquiry had to be done by the Tribunal to correct errors, for which limited purpose there was a direction by the High Court. The matter stood at that stage and the two appeals in this Court are aimed against the decision of the Division Bench of the High Court.

Court's reasoning:
1. Affirming judgments need not speak elaborately, and so, in these two appeals where we do not disagree with the High Court, only a brief statement of reasons is called for4. The first point that appealed to the learned single Judge, but failed before the Division Bench, has admittedly no merit in the light of this Courts direct ruling on the point5. The second point urged by Shri M. K. Ramamurthy that the Central Workshop has had no "separate, viablet and profit and loss accounts in respect of" that undertaking, and that such is the finding of fact by the Tribunal, does not appeal to us.Nor is there life in the third limb of his argument that the respondent has failed to show that the workshop has not been treated as part of the common establishment for the purpose of computation of bonus. We agree with the appellate judgment that the proviso is attracted. Separatet and profit and loss accounts have been prepared and maintained in the past and during the relevant years of accounting also, although there is such force in the contention that they have not been properly maintained. Some items which may help enhance the bonus have, perhaps, been omitted and the High Court is right in directing the Tribunal to, rectify thes and profit ands for the years in the question taking due note of the requirements of the Act as mentioned in the judgment of the Division Bench,, Central Workshop. We are in respectful agreement with the decision in Alloy Steel Project v. The Workmen,I L.L.J. 217]; 1971 3 S.C.R. 629, but do not regard the ratio of that case as applicable to the present case on the facts.