[Cites 10, Cited by 0]
Delhi High Court
M/S Ibp Company Limited vs Mr Shailendra Kumar & Anr on 15 April, 2026
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* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
Reserved on: 09.02.2026
Date of decision: 15.04.2026
Uploaded on: 15.04.2026
+ W.P.(C) 5844/2005 & CM APPL. 4367/2005
M/S IBP COMPANY LIMITED .....Petitioner
Through: Mr. Sauresh Rai, Mr. Neeraj Kumar
and Ms. Upasna Singh, Advs.
versus
MR SHAILENDRA KUMAR & ANR .....Respondents
Through: None
CORAM:
HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE SHAIL JAIN
JUDGMENT
SHAIL JAIN, J
1. The present Writ Petition has been filed under Article 226 /227 of the
Constitution of India, inter-alia, assailing the Order dated 05.08.2004
(hereinafter 'Impugned Order') passed by the learned Labour Court X,
Karkardooma Courts, Delhi under the Industrial Dispute Act, 1947
(hereinafter 'the Act').
2. The Learned Labour Court dismissed the application filed by
Petitioner challenging the jurisdiction of the Labour Courts at Delhi inter
alia on the ground that the Petitioner cannot agitate and press same point
already raised before parallel Court. Further holding that if, the
management was aggrieved of the said order they should have approached
to the Higher Court.
BRIEF FACTS:
3. The Petitioner is a Government (Central) company under the
administrative control of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, having
establishments across India.
4. The Respondent No. 1 was appointed as a Fitter on 01.09.1984 and
was subsequently transferred to the Petitioner's Lucknow Division on
01.09.1985, where he continued to discharge his duties.
5. In April 1986, certain acts of alleged misconduct were attributed to
the Respondent No. 1 during the course of his employment at Lucknow.
Pursuant thereto, Charge-Sheets were issued in the years 1987 and 1988. A
domestic enquiry was conducted at Lucknow in which the Respondent
participated.
6. The Enquiry Officer, by Report dated 22.12.1989, found the
Respondent guilty of the charges leveled against him. After considering the
reply to the Show Cause Notice, the Petitioner passed an Order dated
19.07.1990 dismissing the Respondent from service with effect from
23.07.1990.
7. Aggrieved by his dismissal, the Respondent raised an industrial
dispute before the Conciliation Officer at Delhi in the year 1991. The
Petitioner herein contested the maintainability of the proceedings inter alia
on the ground that the entire cause of action had arisen at Lucknow and that
the authorities at Delhi lacked jurisdiction to decide the dispute. The
conciliation proceedings culminated in failure, and a report under Section
12(4) of the Act, was submitted.
8. Thereafter, by Order dated 08.07.1992, the Delhi Administration,
referred the dispute to the Labour Court, Delhi for adjudication on the
question as to whether the dismissal of the Respondent was illegal and/or
unjustified and to what relief he was entitled. The terms of reference is
extracted as under:
"Whether the dismissal of services of Shri Shailendra
Kumar is illegal and/or unjustified and if so, to what relief
is he entitled and what directions are necessary in this
regard?"
9. The Respondent filed his Statement of Claim before the Labour
Court, to which the Petitioner filed its written statement raising, inter alia,
objections regarding territorial jurisdiction as well as the competency of the
appropriate Government under Section 2(a) of the Act.
10. On the basis of the pleadings of the parties, the Labour Court on
06.01.1997 framed issues, including the questions of jurisdiction and
validity of the enquiry. The issues framed are as following:
"1. Whether Secretary (Labour) NCT of Delhi is the
competent authority to make the present reference. In view
of the objection taken on behalf of the Management
regarding territorial jurisdiction?
2. Whether the Court has jurisdiction to entertain the
present reference?
3. Whether the enquiry conducted by the Management was
not fair and proper? and
4. As in terms of reference."
11. After hearing the parties at length and considering the various
judgments relied upon by the Petitioner, the Ld. Labour Court (LABOUR
COURT X, TIS HAZARI, DELHI) vide Order dated 21.09.1999, rejected the
Petitioner's objection regarding the competence of the appropriate
Government. The said Order reads as under:
"7. The reference was made on 8.7.92. Delhi is a Union
Territory. It is clear that Secretary(Labour), exercised his
powers delegated to him by the Central Government under
provision of Sec. 39 of the Act. The legality of Notification
was questioned before the Hon'ble Delhi High Court in
case of M/s Leela Separators Pvt. Ltd. 1981(43) FLR 171,
wherein the validity of the aforesaid notification was
upheld.
8. Even otherwise the rule 2(f) of the Industrial Disputes
(Central) Rules, 1957, contemplated that in relation to the
industrial dispute in an Union Territory for which the
appropriate government is the Central Government
reference to the Central Government of the Government of
India shall be construed as a reference to the Administrator
to the Territory and the reference to the Chief Labour
Commissioner (Central) and the Asstt. Labour
Commissioner (Central) shall be construed as reference to
the appropriate authority, appointed in that behalf by the
Administrator of the Territory. On the strength of the above
rule, it is clear that the Secretary (Labour), Delhi was
competent to refer the dispute for adjudication to this
Tribunal.
..............
10. For the reasons stated above, the application is
dismissed. File be consigned to record room."
12. Subsequently, the Petitioner moved an application dated 21.08.2003
before another Labour court (LABOUR COURT X: KARKARDOOMA: DELHI)
seeking adjudication of the issue of territorial jurisdiction as a preliminary
issue. The said application came to be dismissed by the Labour Court vide
order dated 05.08.2004, holding that the Petitioner could not be permitted
to re-agitate the very issue once it has been dealt with and rejected. The said
Order reads as under:
"Once it was held by Sh. A.S. Yadav, the then Presiding
Officer, Labour Court, in this matter, it does not upon the
management to agitate and press same point. If the
management was aggrieved of the said order they should
have approached to the Higher Court."
13. Aggrieved by the aforesaid Impugned order dated 05.08.2004, the
Petitioner has preferred the present Writ Petition, inter alia, seeking
quashing and setting aside of the same.
ISSUES INVOLVED:
14. The sole question before this Court at present is:
● Whether the Learned Labour Court was justified in rejecting the
plea of Petitioner regarding competence of jurisdiction, thereby
upholding the reference?
SUBMISSIONS OF PARTIES:
15. As for the submissions of the parties, ld. Counsel for the Petitioner
urged that the Petitioner/Company, being an establishment, has its
branches/offices in different states including branches at Delhi, Lucknow
and Kolkata.
16. Ld. Counsel for the Petitioner has raised the plea that the sole
question involved in the present Writ is whether the Delhi Administration
who made the reference and the Labour Court at Delhi who had passed the
Impugned Order, were the competent authorities in the present case or not.
In support of his arguments, the Petitioner has placed reliance on Section 2
of the Act, stating that, from this provision it is evident that the appropriate
Government is the Central Government in present case; consequently, the
reference ought to be from an authority appointed by the Central
Government and not by the Delhi Government. Therefore, it is submitted
that the Impugned Order suffer from inherent lack of jurisdiction which
can be rectified at the stage of Writ Petition only. Hence, it is prayed that
the Impugned Order be set aside.
17. Ld. Counsel for the Petitioner has placed reliance on the judgment
rendered by a co-ordinate bench of this Court in D.L.F. Universal Ltd. Vs.
Govt. Of National Capital Territory, Delhi and Ors.
MANU/DE/0386/2002 to support his contention with reference to the
competent authority.
18. Since none appears on behalf of the Respondent(s) despite ample
opportunity, this Court is left with no other option but to proceed with the
matter ex parte.
19. Respondents have not been appearing before this Court for a
considerable period and have remained unrepresented on several dates of
hearing. Accordingly, their stand is noticed only on the basis of the counter
affidavit and other documents filed on record. (As Emerging from the
Counter Affidavit on Record)
20. The Respondent submits that the present Petition is wholly
misconceived and amounts to an abuse of the process of law, being directed
against an interlocutory order where no final award has been passed by the
Labour Court.
21. It is contended that the issue of jurisdiction already stood concluded
vide Order dated 21.09.1999 passed by the learned Labour Court, which
was not challenged by the Petitioner and thus attained finality. The
subsequent Application dated 21.08.2003, raising identical objections, was
rightly dismissed on 05.08.2004. The present Petition, founded on the same
grounds, is merely a device to delay the proceedings.
22. The Respondent further submits that the Petitioner has suppressed
material facts and placed a distorted record before this Court to obtain
interim relief, and reserves the right to place the correct documents on
record.
23. It is also contended that the Petitioner has consistently adopted
dilatory tactics, despite evidence having commenced as far back as 1998,
and has prolonged the adjudication by repeated adjournments and belated
applications.
24. On merits, it is submitted that the Respondent was appointed at Delhi
and continued to remain under the control and supervision of the Delhi
office. The salary was disbursed from Delhi, and both the Charge-Sheet and
the Order of termination were issued from Delhi. In these circumstances,
the Labour Court at Delhi rightly exercised jurisdiction.
ANALYSIS & FINDING:
25. Having considered the rival submissions, it is evident that the
controversy lies within a narrow compass. The principal grievance of the
Petitioner is not with respect to the entitlement of the Respondent to any
relief per se, but rather concerns the very competence and jurisdiction of the
authorities that have entertained the dispute and are seized of adjudicating
the claim.
26. The sole and consistent objection raised by the Petitioner throughout
the proceedings is that neither the Conciliation Officer nor the Labour
Court accorded even minimal consideration to the foundational issue of
jurisdiction.
27. It is the specific case of the Petitioner that the Company, being a
Public Sector Undertaking under the administrative control of the Ministry
of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India, and having oil depots
and installations across various parts of the country, would fall within the
purview of the Central Government, as the "appropriate Government" in
terms of Section 2(a) of the Act, for the purposes of any industrial dispute is
Central Government and not state government.
28. The Petitioner has further contended that the industrial dispute raised
by the Workman is otherwise not maintainable in law, inasmuch as the
entire cause of action arose at Lucknow. It is submitted that the alleged
misconduct was committed at Lucknow, the Charge-Sheet was issued there,
the domestic enquiry was conducted at Lucknow, the Enquiry Officer is
based there, and the Workman was employed and continued to discharge
his duties at the Lucknow establishment of the Company. In these
circumstances, the institution of the industrial dispute at New Delhi is
without jurisdiction, and consequently, the Reference Order issued by the
Labour Secretary, Delhi Administration, is liable to be held as
unsustainable in law.
29. The record reveals that the issue of jurisdiction had already been
raised earlier before the learned Labour Court and was adjudicated vide
Order dated 21.09.1999. The said order rejected the Petitioner's objection
regarding the competence of the appropriate Government. The relevant
reasoning recorded by the Labour Court was that the reference had been
made in Delhi, which is a Union Territory, and that the Secretary (Labour)
had exercised powers delegated by the Central Government under Section
39 of the Act. The Labour Court further relied upon the Industrial Disputes
(Central) Rules, 1957, to hold that the Secretary (Labour), Delhi was
competent to refer the dispute for adjudication. The aforesaid reasoning,
being supported by the applicable statutory provisions and judicial
precedent, cannot be said to suffer from perversity or illegality.
30. Subsequently, the Petitioner moved another Application dated
21.08.2003 before the learned Labour Court at Karkardooma seeking
adjudication of the same issue of territorial jurisdiction as a preliminary
issue. The said Application came to be dismissed vide Order dated
05.08.2004. The reasoning assigned by the learned Labour Court while
rejecting the Petitioner's application is that the Petitioner had already
exhausted its remedy by raising the very same objection before the another
court, with the same supporting case law, and therefore, the issue could not
be permitted to be re-agitated. The Labour Court observed that if the
Petitioner was aggrieved by the earlier Order, the proper remedy was to
approach the higher Court. The relevant extract of the impugned order reads
as under:
"Once it was held by Sh. A.S. Yadav, the then Presiding
Officer, Labour Court, in this matter, it does not upon the
management to agitate and press same point. If the
management was aggrieved of the said order they should
have approached to the Higher Court."
31. In essence, the learned Labour Court has declined to entertain the
Application on the ground that the issue had already been adjudicated
earlier, and that the appropriate remedy for the Petitioner, if aggrieved, was
to challenge the said Order before a superior forum rather than seeking
reconsideration before the same court.
32. The reasoning of the learned Labour Court is legally sustainable and
can be justified on well-settled principles governing judicial discipline and
finality of proceedings.
33. The settled position of law is that, once an issue particularly one
relating to jurisdiction has been specifically raised, argued, and adjudicated
by a competent court, the same cannot be permitted to be re-agitated at the
instance of the same party in the course of the same proceedings. In the
case at hand, the predecessor Presiding Officer had already applied his
mind to the objection of jurisdiction and rendered a reasoned decision. In
such circumstances, the Successor Court is bound by the earlier
determination, and entertaining the same objection again would amount to
sitting in appeal over a Coordinate Bench's Order, which is impermissible
in law.
34. The principle underlying this approach is akin to finality of judicial
decisions and the doctrine of constructive res judicata, which prevents
parties from repeatedly raising the same issue once it has been decided.
Even though strict rules of res judicata may not apply with full rigour to
industrial adjudication, the broader principle namely that there must be an
end to litigation applies with equal force. Permitting repeated challenges on
the same ground would lead to procedural uncertainty and protract
adjudication. It will be apposite to extract Section 11 of Code of Civil
Procedure, 1908:
" 11. Res judicata.--No Court shall try any suit or issue
in which the matter directly and substantially in issue has
been directly and substantially in issue in a former suit
between the same parties, or between parties under whom
they or any of them claim, litigating under the same title, in
a Court competent to try such subsequent suit or the suit in
which such issue has been subsequently raised, and has
been heard and finally decided by such Court.
.......
.......
.......
Explanation IV.--Any matter which might and ought to
have been made ground of defence or attack in such former
suit shall be deemed to have been a matter directly and
substantially in issue in such suit."
35. Section 11 of the Code embodies the principle that a matter once
directly and substantially in issue between the same parties, and finally
adjudicated by a competent court, cannot be reopened in subsequent
proceedings. By virtue of Explanation IV, even those grounds which ought
to have been raised in the earlier proceedings are deemed to have been in
issue, thereby precluding parties from re-agitating the same or related issues
at a later stage. Accordingly, the Petitioner cannot be permitted to reopen
the same grievance at that stage, even assuming that the earlier objection
was not elaborately considered by the predecessor, an assumption which, in
any event, does not arise in the present case.
36. Further, the Labour Court correctly observed that if the Petitioner
was aggrieved by the earlier Order passed by the predecessor Presiding
Officer, the appropriate course of action was to challenge the same before a
higher forum not before the same forum and an officer equal in rank to that
of the officer who had passed the previous Order. Having failed to do so,
the Petitioner was not at all just in indirectly reopening the issue by filing a
fresh Application before the same Court. Such a course would defeat the
hierarchy of remedies and undermine judicial discipline.
37. Additionally, allowing repeated objections on jurisdiction at different
stages would disrupt the continuity of proceedings and delay the
adjudication of the substantive dispute, which, regrettably, has happened in
the instant case. The Labour Court, therefore, acted within its jurisdiction in
declining to revisit an issue already decided and in directing the parties to
proceed on the basis of the earlier determination.
38. Accordingly, the impugned reasoning reflects a proper exercise of
judicial restraint, adherence to procedural propriety, and respect for the
finality of orders passed by a Coordinate Bench.
39. It is well settled that while exercising jurisdiction under Articles 226
and 227 of the Constitution of India, this Court does not act as a Court of
Appeal over the findings recorded by the Labour Court. The scope of
judicial review is limited and interference is warranted only where the
Impugned Order suffers from patent illegality, perversity, jurisdictional
error, or where material evidence has been ignored or irrelevant
considerations have been taken into account.
40. It is also reflected from the records placed on record, particularly
Order dated 21.09.1999 that the issue concerning the competence and
jurisdiction of the Labour Court had already been framed and was sub
judice before the learned Labour Court. In such circumstances, this Court is
of the considered view that no interference was warranted at the
interlocutory stage.
41. Once issues have been duly framed by the adjudicating authority, it is
both the right and the obligation of the parties to lead evidence and advance
submissions in support of their respective stands so as to enable the Court
to arrive at a just and reasoned determination.
42. Interference with interlocutory orders, particularly when the matter is
actively under adjudication, ought to be exercised sparingly. Entertaining
such challenges at a premature stage would unnecessarily impede the
progress of proceedings and defeat the very purpose of expeditious
adjudication under the Act.
43. The question of jurisdiction in the present case is not a pure question
of law, but a mixed question of law and fact, which necessarily requires
appreciation of evidence and factual determination. Such an issue is best
left to be decided by the Labour Court upon culmination of the trial.
44. It is further evident that the Petitioner had earlier raised an identical
objection before the learned Labour Court, which stood duly considered
and rejected. The said determination having not been assailed before any
superior forum has attained finality.
45. The subsequent attempt by the Petitioner to re-agitate the very same
issue by filing another application before successor court having same
jurisdiction amounts to an abuse of process. Such conduct partakes the
character of forum shopping, which cannot be countenanced in law.
46. The proper course available to the Petitioner was to challenge the
earlier Order before an appropriate forum. Having failed to avail of such
remedy, the Petitioner cannot now be permitted to indirectly reopen the
same issue at a later stage.
"At times, within the judicial system, the process itself tends
to assume the character of a punishment, which ought not to
occur on account of abstinence, whether on the part of
counsel or from the Bench."
47. In view of the foregoing discussion, this Court finds no infirmity,
illegality, or jurisdictional error in the Impugned Order passed by the
learned Labour Court.
48. Accordingly, the present Writ Petition is devoid of merit and is
hereby dismissed. The parties are directed to appear before the learned
Labour Court for expeditious adjudication of the dispute on merits.
49. In cases such as the present one, where a party has repeatedly sought
to reopen settled issues and has indulged in dilatory tactics, the Court would
ordinarily be justified in imposing exemplary costs so as to deter such
conduct and to set a precedent. The record reveals that the present dispute
has remained pending for nearly twenty-six years, a delay which cannot be
countenanced and which is, to a considerable extent, attributable to the
conduct of the Petitioner in repeatedly raising objections that stood
conclusively decided. Such actions, evidently calculated to prolong
proceedings, not only defeat the object of expeditious adjudication under
the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, but also result in grave prejudice to the
workman, who is deprived of timely relief.
50. This Court cannot remain oblivious to the fact that, in several cases,
such tactics are employed by managements to delay the outcome of
industrial disputes and to evade their legal obligations, thereby causing
undue hardship to the workman. The present case is a telling example of
such misuse of process.
51. While this Court is strongly inclined to impose exemplary costs upon
the Petitioner for abuse of the process of law, it refrains from doing so at
this stage due to absence of Respondent/workman.
52. Dismissed. Pending application(s), if any, stand disposed off. No
order as to cost.
SHAIL JAIN
JUDGE
APRIL 15, 2026/PT/HP
