Workmen of Indian Express (p) Ltd. v. the Management

The Judgment of the Court was .delivered by Shelat, J. Two workmen, Guiab Singh and Satya Pal, were appointed by the respondent-company in December 1956 and Feb­ ruary 1955 respectively under the designation of copy holders. It was alleged that they were entrusted with the duties of proof­ readers and therefore they claimed that they should be treated as such. In July 1959 the management issued an order in which the two workmen were descdbed as copy-holders. It was alleged that in spite of this order the management continued to give the workmen the work of proof-readers. A dispute whether the two workmen should be treated as proof readers having arisen and having been espoused by the Delhi Union of Journalists, the Delhi Administration, by a notification dated August 2, 1961 referred it to the Industrial Tribunal, Delhi. The management contended that the said dispute was an individual dispute and not an industrial dispute and that that being so it was wrongly referred to the Tribunal and the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to adjudicate it. The Tribunal raised the preli­ minary issue, namely, whether the dispute relating to the said two workmen was an industrial dispute.· The Tribunal held that ) ... - , - • ?, .F WORKMEN INDIAN EXPRESS v. MANAGEMENT (Shela!, J.) 915 it was not an industrial dispute but was only an individual dis­ pute of the two ',¥orkmen and therefore it had no j~risdiction .to adjudicate the said reference. The workmen obtamed special leave from this Court and that is how this appeal has come up before us for disposal. Apart from the oral evidence, the appellants relied. on two documents Ex. WWl/ A, which purported to be the mmutes of a meeting held on November 15, 1960 of 17 working journalists and Ex. WB/1 purporting to be the minutes of a meeting of the executive committee of the Dellii Union of Journalists held on December 1, 1960. The union maintained that these two reso­ lutions were proof of espousal of the dispute, the fir~t by an ap­ preciable number of the co-workers of the two aggneved work­ men and the second by the union and therefore the dispute though originally an individual dispute was converted into an industrial dispute. The Tribunal rejected Ex. WWl/ A, namely, the minutes of the alleged meeting of the 17 working journalists in the employ of the respondent company as unreliable. The Tribu­ nal next considered whether, even assuming that the said 17 working journalists espoused the cause of the two workmen that espousal transformed the dispute in question into an industrial dispute, in other words, whether they constituted an appreciable number sufficient to change the dispute into an industrial dispute. At the material time the Branch office of the respondent company at Dellii consisted in all of 388 employees, out of whom 140 were working in the Press. The working journalists numbered 131, out of whom 63 were outstation correspondents and the remaining 68 were working journalists performing their duties in Dellii and New Delhi. The Tribunal held that though the said 63 working journalists were outstation journalists they nevertheless belonged to the staff of the respondent company"s Delhi Branch, and there­ fore, could not be excluded from consideration. The question which the Tribunal posed to itself was whether 17 out of the said 131 working _journalists c_ould be said to be an appreciable num­ ber. A,ccordmg to the Tribunal, even if those 63 outstation cor­ resp?ndents were excluded and only 68 working journalists were cons1dere?, 17 of them would not constitute an appreciable num­ ber sufficient to convert the said dispute into an industrial dispute . h also held that. mere passmg of a !esolution without anything done to follow 1.t up was not sufficient to constitute espousal. l_'here was no evidence that after passing the said alleged resolu­ tion on Novemb~r 15, ~960 anything further was done. On these ~acts the .Tn bunal did not consider the aforesaid resolution assummg that It was passed, as constituting espousal. ' As regar?s the resolution d.ated December 1, · 1960 the minutes of the me~tlng of the executive committee of the Delhi Union of Journalists were produced before the Tribunal. The minutes 916 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [l 969J 2 S.C.R. stated that the meeting after considering the representation made to it by the employees of the Indian Express decided to take up the case of the two workmen and authorised the office bearers of the union to initiate the necessary proceedings. The Tribunal found that the union initiated a fresh dispute before the Concilia­ tion Officer and that there was no pending case initiated earlier, i.e., before December 1, 1960 by another union as alleged by the appellants -which could have been continued by the union. A copy of the statement of claim filed by the union before the Con­ ciliation Officer was also produced before the Tribunal. There was evidence that 31 working journalists employed in the res­ pondent company had become the members of the Delhi Union of Journalists. But they had joined the union after the said order of July 1959. The Tribunals' view was that the said 31 working journalists having joined the Delhi Union of Journalists after the cause of action had arisen in July 1959, the said resolution of the union's executive committee would not constitute espousal as there would be no nexus between the dispute and the union, and therefore, the resolution dated December 1, 1960 did not have the effect of converting the said dispute into an industrial dispute. Mr. Ramamurti, for the appellants, contended that the reso­ lution dated December l, 1960 coupled with the fact that the union initiated conciliation proceedings in respect of the demand of the said two workmen was sufficient to transform the dispute into an industrial dispute. On the other hand, Mr. Gupte, ap­ pearing for the company, contended that a dispute which is prima facie an individual dispute may assume the character of an in­ dustrial dispute if it is taken up or espoused by an appreciable body of the workmen of the establishment. Espousal by a union is regarded as sufficient, for, that means that it is an espousal by an appreciable number of workmen in that establishment. If such a dispute is espoused by an outside union, the workmen of the establishment, appreciable in number, must be members of such a union. On these contention, the question for our deter­ mination is whether the Delhi Union of Journalists can be said to have espoused the dispute of the two workmen; if so, whet­ her it did in time, and whether the union not being exclusively a union of the workmen employed in the respondent company, could espouse the said cause. The resolution dated December 1, 1960 passed by the exe­ cutive committee of the union was not disbelieved by the Tribu­ nal. That, coupled with the fact that the union authorities ini­ tiated the conciliation proceeding, must mean that the union had espoused the cause of the two workmen. The dispute arose in July 1959 when the management refused to treat the two work- . ;. . WORKMEN INDIAN EXPRESS v. MANAGEMENT (She/at, J.) 917 men as proof-readers. Thereafter the executive committee, after considering a representation made to it by the employees of the respondent company, as the resolution reads, passed .~e. said re­ solution authorising the office bearers of the umon to 1mtiate pro­ ceedings in the matter of the said dispute and the secretary accord­ ingly initiated proceedings before the conciliation officer. In these circumstances, it is not possible to appreciate how the espousal by the union can be said to be beyond time as such espousal can only take place after and not before the dispute arose, or as coun­ sel put it, the cause of action arose. In The Bombay Union of Journalists v. The Hindu, Bombay(') this Court in clear terms laid down that the test of an industrial dispute is whether at the date of the reference the dispute was taken up and supported by a union, or by an appreciable number of workmen. There being no doubt of the union having taken up the cause of the two work­ men before the reference the first two parts of the question must be answered in the affirmative. The next question is whether the cause of a workman in a particular establishment in an industry can be sponsored by a union which is not of workmen of that establishment but is one of which membership is open to workmen of other establishments in that industry. In Central Provinces Transport Services Ltd. v. Raghunath Gopa/ Patwardhan(') this Court noted that decid­ ed cases in India disclosed three views as to the meaning of an industrial dispute: (1) a dispute between an employer and a single workman cannot be an industrial dispute, (2) it can be an indus­ trial dispute and ( 3) it cannot per se be an industrial dispute but may become one if taken up by a trade union or a number of workmen. After discussing the scope of industrial dispute as de­ fined in sec. 2(k) of the Act it observed that the preponderance of judicial opinion was clearly in favour of the last of the three views and that there was considerable reason behind it. In the News­ papers Ltd. v. The State Industrial Tribunal, U.P. (3 ) the third respondent was employed as a lino typist by the appellant com­ pan~. On .an allegation of incompetence he was dismissed from service. His case was not taken up by any union of workers of the appellant company, nor by any of the unions of workmen em­ ~loyed i? similar or allied trades. But the U.P. Working Journa­ lists Umon, Lucknow, with which the third respondent had no concern, took the matter to the Conciliation Board. On a refer­ ence be1:ig made to the Industrial Tribunal by the Government the legahty of that reference was challenged by the appellant com­ pa~y on t?e ~ound that the said dispute could not be treated as an ~ndustrrnl dispute under the U.P. Industrial Disputes Act 1947 which defined by sec. 2 an industrial dispute as having the same (1) [1962] 3 S.C.R. 893. (3) [1957] S.C.R. 754. (2) [1956] S.C.R. 95~. meaning assigned to it in sec. 2(k) of the Central Act. This Court upheld the contention observing that the notification referring the said dispute proceeded on an assumption that a dispute existed between the employer and "his workmen", that Tajammul Hus­ sain, the workman concerned, could not be described as "work­ men", nor could the U.P. Working Journalists Union be called "'his workmen" nor was there any evidence to show that a dispute had got transformed into an industrial dispute. The question whether the union sponsoring a dispute must be the union of work­ men in the establishment in which the workman concerned is em­ ployed or not had not so far arisen. It seems such a question arose for the first time in the case of Bombay Union of Journalists v. The Hindu, Bombay('). The decision in that case laid down (1) that the Industrial Disputes Act excluded its application to an individual dispute as distinguished from a dispute involving a group of workmen unless such a dispute is made a common cause by a body or a considerable section of workmen and (2) the mem­ bers of a union who are not workmen of the employer against whom the dispute is sought to be raised cannot by their support convert an individual dispute into an industrial dispute. Persons who seek to support the cause must themselves be directly and substantially interested in the dispute and persons who are not the employees of the same employer cannot be regarded as so interest­ ed. The Court held that the dispute there being prima facie an individual dispute it was necessary in order to convert it into an industrial dispute that it should be taken up by a union of the em­ ployees or by an appreciable number of employees of Hindu, Bom­ bay. The Bombay Union of Journalists not being a union of the employees of the Hindu, Bombay, but a union of all employees in the industry of journalism in Bombay, its support of the cause of the workman concerned would not convert the individual dispute into an industrial dispute. The members of such a union cannot be said to be persons substantially and directly interested in the dispute between the workman concerned and his employer, the Hindu Bombay. But in Workmen v. Mis. Dharampal Prem­ chand(2) this Court, after reviewing the previous decisions, distin­ guished the case of Hindu, Bombay and held that notwithstand­ ing the width of the words used in sec. 2(k) of the Act a dispute raised by an individual workman cannot become an industrial dispute unless it is supported either by his union or in the absence of a union by a number of work­ men, that a union may validly raise a dispute though it may be a minority union of the workmen employed in an establishment that if there was no union of workmen in an establishment a groun of employees can raise the dispute which becomes an in­ dustrial dispute even though it is a dispute relating to an individual (1) [19623] S.C.R. 893. (I) [1965] 3 S.C.R. 394. • c E , ' • ' > WORKMEN JNDIAN EXPRESS V. MANAGEMENT (She/at, J.) 919 workman, and last! y, that where the workmen of an establish­ ment have no union of their own and some or all of them have joined a union of another establishment belonging to the same industry, if such a union takes up the cause of the workman working in an establishment which has no union of its own, the dis­ pute would become an industrial dispute if such a union can claim a representative character in a way that its support would make the dispute an industrial dispute. The evidence of the union secretary was that in 1959-60, 31 working journalists of the respondent company were members of the Delhi Union of Journalists. It was nobody's case that these 31 members did not continue to be the members of that union in 1960-61 also. If the number of working journalists in the res­ pondent company were to be taken as 68 membership of the union by as many as 31 working journalists would certainly confer on the union a representative character. Even if the number of work­ ing journalists were to be taken as 131, it would not be unreason­ able to say that 31, i.e., about 25% of them would, by becoming the members of the union, give a representative character to the union. It is clear from the evidence that at the material time there was no union of working journalists employed by the res­ pondent company. Therefore, in accordance with the decision in the Workmen v. Mis. Dharampal Premchand(') the union can be said to have a representative character qua the working jour­ nalists employed in the respondent company. There can be no doubt that the union had taken up the cause of the two workmen by its executive committee passing the said resolution and its office bearers having followed up that resolution by taking the matter before the conciliation officer. Though the grievance of the two workmen arose in July 1959 when the management declined to accept them as proof-readers the union had sponsored their cause before the date of reference as laid down in the case of Hindu ~ombay. That being the position it cannot be gainsaid that th~ dispute was tr~nsform.ed into an industrial dispute as it was spon­ sored by a umon which possessed a representative character vis­ a-vis the working journalists in the employ of the respondent company. . We must, therefore, hold that the Tribunal's view that the dispute was not an industrial dispute was incorrect. The award, therefore, will ·have to be set aside and the appeal of the workmen allowed. There will be no order as to costs. R.K.P.S. Appeal allowed. (I) [1%3] 3 S.C.R. 394.