Industrial Dispute | Order Passed Without Any Specific Findings - SC Remits Matter Back To Single Judge For Fresh Disposal

The Supreme Court bench of Justice MR Shah and Justice BV Nagarathna remitted a matter back to the Single Judge who had passed an Order without any discussion or recording any specific findings on the order passed by the Labour Court.

In this case, a workman was appointed as a Junior Supervisor at Visakhapatnam. While he was working at Visakhapatnam, he was transferred to Jharsuguda in State of Orissa. The workman instead of joining at the place of transfer submitted a representation to the Director requesting for transfer to Mangalore in Karnataka State. The same was not acceded to.

The management treated the workman as deemed to have been relieved from Visakhapatnam office as he had neither handed over the charge at Visakhapatnam nor did he report for duty at Jharsuguda office.

The workman-respondent was later dismissed from service by the management. Aggrieved, he moved Labour Court.

The Court modified the order of dismissal with stoppage of one increment with cumulative effect and ordered for reinstatement of the workman into service, with a direction to the workman to join at the place of his transfer i.e., at Jharsuguda within a period of one month from the date of receipt of the order, failing which, he shall not be entitled to the reinstatement.

The workman claimed that he had reported at Jharsuguda but he was not permitted to join on the ground that no instructions were received from the head office. Therefore, the workman filed an application under Section 33(C)(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 before the Labour Court for recovery of wages.

The Labour Court dismissed the said application Section 33(C)(2) on the ground that the workman did not go to Jharsuguda to join duty.

Aggrieved, the workman filed a writ petition challenging the order passed by the Labour Court dismissing the application under Section 33(C)(2).

The Single Judge, without any further discussion on merits on the order passed by the Labour Court rejecting the application under Section 33(C)(2) of the ID Act, allowed Writ Petition preferred by the workman and set aside the order of the Labour Court rejecting the application under Section 33(C)(2) of the ID Act.

This decision was challenged before the Division Bench of the High Court but the division bench dismissed the appeals as non-maintainable.

The matter then came before the Supreme Court.

Senior Advocate Siddhartha Dave appeared for appellant(s)-management and Advocate K. Parameshwar, appeared on behalf of the respondent.

The Court noted thus "…while allowing the writ petition preferred by the workman challenging the dismissal of application under Section 33(C)(2), from the order passed by the learned Single Judge it appears that there is no discussion at all on the order passed by the Labour Court rejecting the 33(C)(2) application and without any discussion and/or recording any specific findings on the merits of the order passed by the Labour Court rejecting the 33(C)(2) application, the writ petition preferred by the workman has been allowed."

The Court observed that the Single Judge should have considered the writ petition preferred by the workman on merits and ought to have given some findings on the order passed by the Labour Court rejecting the 33(C) (2) application.

Therefore the Court set aside the said Order of the Single Judge and remitted the matter back to the Single Judge to decide the petition afresh.

Cause title- M/s Mitra S.P. (P) Ltd. & Anr. v. Dhiren Kumar

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