Case: Management of Pratap Press, New Delhi Vs. Secretary, Delhi Press Workers' Union Delhi

This Press was started by its proprietor Shri Narendra in 1951. He started the publication of the paper Vir Arjun in April 1954. He was also one of the partners of the firm which owned another paper the Daily Pratap. A dispute over a claim of bonus raised by the workmen of the Press having been referred to the Industrial Tribunal, the workmen contended in the first place that the three activitiesthe Press, the Vir Arjun as also the Daily Pratapwere in reality the industrial ventures of one family consisting of Shri Narendra and his sons and the working resultswhether profit or loss of these three concerns should be pooled together for the decision of the question what bonus, if any, should be paid. Their alternative contention was that the result of the Press only should be considered. The employer contended that the workmens contention that the three concerns should be treated as one could not be accepted inasmuch as the ownership of the Daily Pratap was a partnership firm of which he was only one of the partners while the other two, viz., the Press and the Vir Arjun, were owned by him. His case was that these two, the Press and the Vir Arjun, were parts of one single industry and the total results of these two have to be considered in deciding whether bonus should be allowed or not. The Industrial Tribunal accepted the employers contention that the results of the Daily Pratap could not be taken into consideration for the simple reason that the ownership of the Daily Pratap was different from the ownership of the Pratap Press and the Vir Arjun paper. On the next question whether the Pratap Press and the Vir Arjun form one industrial unit or two distinct industrial units its decision was however against the employers contention. On a consideration of the materials before it held that the Vir Arjun was a distinct and separate industrial entity from the Pratap Press and so the results of the Vir Arjun could not be taken into consideration in deciding the question of bonus.

Court's reasoning:
6. Coming now to the facts of the present appeals we find that the functions of the Press and the Vir Arjun paper cannot be considered to be so interdependent that one cannot exist without the other. That may presses exist without any paper being published by the same owner is common knowledge and is not seriously disputed. Nor is it disputed that an industry of publishing a paper may well exist without the same owner running a press for the printing of the paper. The very fact that Daily Pratap owned by a partnership firm, was being printed at the Pratap Press belonging to Shri Narendra itself shows this very clearly. It cannot therefore be said that there is such functional interdependence between the press unit and the paper unit that the two should reasonably be considered as forming one industrialare matters on which the employer is the best person to give evidence from he records of his concerns. No evidence has however been produced to show that at any time before the dispute was raised the treated the capital employed in the two units as coming from one single capital fund, nor anything to show that he pooled the profits or that the workmen were treated as belonging to one establishment. It is interesting to note that there is no record showing whether for his own purposes he treated the assets of the two units as forming one composite whole or the assets of two distinct units has been produced. The profit and loss accounts which we find on the record appear to have been prepared sometime in December 26, 1951,apparently after the reference had been made and the dispute whether these units were one or two, had arisen. No weight can therefore be attached to the fact that in this profit and loss accountboth the receipts from the press and the receipts from the Vir Arjun were shown as the income.8. Someappear to have been produced in Court but it is nobodys case that these throw any light on the question whether the capital fund or the labour force for the two units were treated as one and the same. It is reasonable to think that thewere produced only to show the actual working results of the Vir Arjun. It has to be noticed that the Tribunal thought that the account had not been kept in a satisfactory manner and there was room for suspicion about the correctness of the same.9. The position therefore is that the activities of the press unit are independent of the activities of the paper unit and there is no record from which it can be ascertained how the employer himself treated these two units. When in this position of things we find the employer himself making a statement that "there are two institutions, the Vir Arjun and the press, the account books are kept separately" and that "there are two cashiers," the conclusion reached by the Tribunal that the Press and the Vir Arjun paper are distinct and separate industrial units appears to be reasonable and cannot be successfully challenged.10. Once this conclusion is reached the question of what bonus is payable depends on a proper calculation of the available surplus of the Pratap Press itself without taking into consideration the loss incurred by the Vir Arjun. No objection has been taken before us to the calculation made by the Tribunal on that basis. As the only point raised in this appeal, viz., that the Vir Arjun and the Pratap Press form one industrial unit fails the appeal is dismissed with costs.11. The position is the same in the other appeal i.e., Appeal No. 189 of 1959. There also the only question raised is that the Pratap Press and the Vir Arjun are two part of two industrial unit. For the reasons already mentioned in the first appeal we must hold that these must be held to be distinct industrial units and that the workmen of the Press are entitled to such bonus as the working results of the Pratap Press