Bhartiya Engineering And General ... vs The Management Of M/S. Bhagwan ...
2014 Latest Caselaw 239 Del

*     IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
                                           Decided on January 13, 2014
+                           W.P.(C) 6411/2013
BHARTIYA ENGINEERING AND GENERAL MAZDOOR UNION
                                        ..........Petitioner
             Represented by: Mr. Prabhakar, Advocate.

                   versus

THE MANAGEMENT OF M/S. BHAGWAN MAHAVIR HOSPITAL
AND ORS.                                    ..... Respondent

Represented by: Mr. Zubeda Begum, Standing Counsel for GNCTD/Mahavir Hospital (R-1).

Mr. P.K.Mittal, Mr. Anil Kumar, Advocate, Mr. Anil Sehgal, Advocate for R-2.

Ms.Kalpana Thakur, Advocate for R-3.

+ W.P.(C) 6656/2013

BHARTIYA ENGINEERING AND GENERAL MAZDOOR UNION ..........Petitioner Represented by: Mr.Prabhakar, Advocate.

THE MANAGEMENT OF M/S. BHAGWAN MAHAVIR HOSPITAL AND ANR. ..... Respondent Represented by: Mr. Zubeda Begum, Standing Counsel for GNCTD/Mahavir Hospital (R-1).

Mr. P.K.Mittal, Mr. Anil Kumar, Advocate, Mr. Anil Sehgal, Advocate for R-2.

CORAM:

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE V.KAMESWAR RAO V.KAMESWAR RAO, J. (Oral )

1. Since both the writ petitions involve common issue, with the consent of the parties, are being heard and decided by this common order.

Writ Petition (Civil) No. 6411/2013

2. The petitioner raised an industrial dispute with respect 27 workers (Annexure P3) whose services alleged to have been terminated. The Government of NCT of Delhi, vide order dated June 24, 2013 referred the dispute for the adjudication of Labour Court-IX, Karkardooma Courts, Delhi vide a consolidated reference in the following terms:

„Whether the services of the workman Sh. Shani Sharma and 26 other employees (as per Annexure A) have been terminated illegally and unjustifiably and if so, to what relief they are entitled and what directions are necessary in this regard".

3. That Pursuant to the reference, the Labour Court vide its order dated July 05, 2013, separated the disputes with respect to the 27 workmen and marked the Industrial disputes as I.D. Nos. 214 to 240 of 2013. In the month of August, 2013, each of the workmen filed an application for clubbing of the Industrial disputes and marking and hearing of the Industrial disputes as one reference with respect to all workmen.

4. The application has been decided by the Labour Court vide the impugned order dated September 10, 2013, whereby the Labour Court has dismissed the application and directed the workmen to file their statement of claim.

Writ Petition (Civil) No. 6656/2013

5. On April 10, 2013, the petitioner raised industrial dispute on

behalf of six workmen against their alleged termination. On June 24, 2013, the appropriate government referred the dispute for adjudication of the Labour Court in terms of the following reference "Whether the services of the workman Krishana and five other employees (as per Annexure A) have been terminated illegally and unjustifiably and if so, to what relied they are entitled and what directions are necessary in this respect".

6. The Labour Court divided the consolidated reference of six workmen into six separate industrial disputes and marked them as I.D. Nos. 187 to 192 of 2013. The workmen filed applications for clubbing of the Industrial disputes with respect to the six employees as one Industrial dispute. The same was dismissed by the impugned order dated September 28, 2013.

7. I note that the reasoning given by the Labour Court in its order dated September 10, 2013 which is impugned in W.P.(C) No. 6411/2013 is a detailed one. For the purpose of reasoning given by the Labour Court, I refer to the said order to understand the relevant considerations which weighed with the Labour Court to dismiss the application.

8. On a specific query to the learned counsel for the petitioner as, whether any bar exists in law to separate the Industrial disputes with regard to more than one workman and numbering them as separate Industrial disputes, the answer was in the negative. So, I proceed on the premise that there is no bar in law for separating industrial disputes with respect to more than one worker referred to by the appropriate government by one single reference. The only submission of the learned counsel for the petitioner is, that it would financially burden the workmen. That apart, he states that the case of the petitioner is covered by the order dated November 14, 2006 in W.P.(C) No. 6470 of 2004

wherein the learned Single Judge of this Court has observed "there is no legal bar in making a reference in respect of an industrial dispute, containing claim of several workmen together, before the Labour Court or the Industrial Tribunal‟. In view of the dicta of this Court, his submission is that separation of industrial disputes is illegal.

9. On the other hand, learned counsel appearing for the respondent No. 1 Ms. Zubeda Begum would support the order. So also, the other counsel appearing for the private respondents. Having considered the submissions of the learned counsel for the parties and the order passed by the Labour Court, I do not find any infirmity in the impugned order. In fact, I find from the order a similar submission of financial burden was made on behalf of the petitioner. The Labour Court in Para 5, 6 and 7 of impugned order, has held as under:

"5. Court is of the opinion that under the scheme of I.D. Act, cost is not any criteria to decide an enquiry as generally, the workers are represented through some union which is a trade union comprising of workers themselves and the union contest the case of workers by exposing itself to be the well wishers of the workers. It is also a known fact that the trade union comprising of the workers itself and as such this contention of the Ld. ARM is not well found. The court otherwise can make an effort and it is also informed to the worker individually that they may appear before DLSA, in order to take the benefit of benevolent provisions of the I.D. Act, if the litigation cost is one of the factors.

6. There is yet another practical aspect that if all the 6 I.Ds are clubbed into one I.D. then even in the absence of one of the worker and even in the absence of some of the workers, other workers would suffer adversely by delaying their cases. Not only this, there may a proposition that even one of the workers who had not been appearing since long then also the court would not be able to pass a No Dispute Award against such worker until and unless the whole

process of the inquiry of all the workers is not completed. One of the situation may be that one of the workers who had not been appearing for substantial period, and when the matter reaches the state of evidence or at the stage of final arguments, and if such worker appears before the court at the time claiming that he is the workman and could not appear before the court for one reason or the other and if an application is moved by such a long absentee worker then cases of other 5 workers who are contenting the matter sincerely would suffer as in that eventuality, such application has to be disposed off first and then case of that worker would be brought at par i.e. upto the stage where the case of other workers were pending, and it can happen not only once but various times. Some workers would be delaying their own matter at the cost of other workers who otherwise had been prosecuting the matter diligently.

7. Keeping in view such apprehension, the court has bifurcated the dispute of all the 6 workers into individual I.D. of each worker so that if one of the workers does not appear, he should be responsible for his own act and other workers should not suffer for negligence on the part of few workers. Therefore, in the considered opinion of the court, it is more practical to bifurcate an I.D. of 6 different workers, into individual I.D. so that they can pursue their case of their own depending upon their own vision and legal advice received and in such eventuality, even if some worker may choose not to proceed against the management or choose to compromise with the management, they can do so at their own level separately, without affecting the case of other workers. This may even reduce the dependency of the workers to one particular AR. Therefore, contention of Ld. ARW does not appear to be well founded (sic)".

10. I also find that the Labour Court has also reproduced the observation of this Court in the writ petition referred above wherein the learned Single Judge of this Court has, inter alia, observed that it is for the Labour Court to decide how to proceed with a claim, whether to entertain the claim of the workmen, on the basis of the joint statement of

the claim, or to ask each individual to file individual claim.

11. The order of the Labour Court being a well reasoned order taking into consideration all the circumstances which may cause inconvenience and delay the proceedings, this Court would not like to interfere with the impugned order and substitute the opinion of the Labour Court with its own opinion. I do not find any merit in the writ petitions and the same are dismissed with no costs.

CM No.13973/2013 (for stay) with CM No. 14455/2013 (for stay)

12. In view of the dismissal of the writ petitions, the applications for stay also stand dismissed as infructuous.

(V.KAMESWAR RAO) JUDGE

JANUARY 13, 2014 akb