A. Madasamy vs S. Subramanian and The Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Tirunelveli

V.S. Sirpurkar, J.—An interesting question of law emerges in this writ petition. The petitioner is a worker. He was working as a Driver. He joined the duties as Driver in 1983. There was some misconduct on his part and, therefore, after holding a departmental enquiry, he was terminated from service on 10.2.1986. The petitioner, thereafter, utmost tried to initiate the proceedings before the Labour Court under the Industrial Disputes Act. But, his first proceedings he had to withdraw because rightly or wrongly he had not joined the proper employer i.e., the owner of the bus. He, therefore, withdrew his proceedings under the Industrial Disputes Act and again started the exercise of the amicable settlement by way of conciliation proceedings before the Labour Officer. The Labour Officer reported the failure of conciliation by his report dated 6.2.1992. After that, he approached the Labour Court with a claim statement dated 13.3.1992. Before the Labour Court, however, another objection came to be taken by the respondent.

According to the respondent, the petitioner had approached the Labour Court only u/s 2A(2) of the Act, which gives a right to the workman to approach the Labour Court directly without any reference u/s 10 of the Act on failure of conciliation proceedings. The employer pointed out that the petitioner was terminated in the year 1986 on the day when Section 2A(2) of the Act was not on the statute book, as it was introduced only by Tamil Nadu Act 5 of 1988 with effect from 1.11.1988. The employer, therefore, urged that the very initiation of the proceedings by the workman u/s 2A(2) of the Act was not proper, as the cause of action for the proceedings had arisen only in 1986 when there was no such right available to the workman to approach the Labour Court without taking recourse to Section 10 of the Act. The Labour Court seems to have accepted this view, and has dismissed the claim of the petitioner. It is this order of the Labour Court which is challenged before me in the present petition.

Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner pointed out that the approach of the Labour Court in dismissing the claim petition was entirely erroneous. She argues that in this case the conciliation proceedings were initiated on the date when the amendment was already effected. It is an admitted position that the said conciliation proceedings were initiated somewhere in the year 1991 against the present employer.

She further points out that there is a valid failure report by the Labour Officer on 6.2.1992 and, therefore, according to the learned counsel, if the Section is properly read, the workman was well within his rights to approach the Labour Court without taking a recourse to Section 10 of the Act, as the remedy provided by Sub Section (2) of Section 2A of the Act was available to him. The argument is that the remedy under Sub Section (2) springs out on the failure of the conciliation, and hence the failure of the conciliation should alone be taken as the cause of action for activating the remedy under Sub Section (2) of Section 2A of the Act.

Opposing this argument, learned counsel for the employer contends that Sub Section (2) introduced by the Tamil Nadu Act must be held prospective in operation and, therefore, it would cover only the cases of terminations which have taken place after the introduction of the Section. According to the learned counsel, the correct way of reading the Section would be to treat the dismissal or termination, as the case may be, as the cause of action, and not the failure of conciliation report. According to the learned counsel, in fact if there is no termination or dismissal as the case may be, there would be no question of the workman approaching the authority under the Industrial Disputes Act for conciliation proceedings. Therefore, according to the learned counsel in this case, since the termination is on 10.2.1986 which is before the introduction of Sub Section (2) of Section 2A, the remedy u/s 2 would not be available to the workman, and the Labour Court was right in interpreting the Section as it did.

Considering these rival submissions, it has to be seen whether the order of the Labour Court is correct in law.

In the first place, it must be realised that the Industrial Disputes Act is beneficial legislation. Secondly, by introducing Sub Section (2) of Section 2A, the State of Tamil Nadu has extended the benefit further to the workman by dispensing with the approach to the Labour Court only through Section 10 of the Act by way of reference. The remedy has been made easier by introduction of Sub Section (2) to Section 2A of the Act, and by the amended provision, the workman can now straightway go to the Labour Court without approaching the Government for reference without wasting time and taking chances of rejection of reference application. Once the provision is looked at from this angle, it is an established canon of the interpretation of beneficial statute that interpretation should be pro remedy, and not the anti remedy. The interpretation should be such as would further the remedy intended by the statute and not otherwise. If we accept that, Clause (2) is strictly prospective in operation as is being argued by the learned counsel for the respondent, then it would mean that the workman would be deprived of the remedy to approach the Courts under the Industrial Disputes Acts directly and would have to necessarily seek a reference from the Government. Such could not have been the intendment of the legislature. The judgment of the Labour Court suffers from a basic fallacy that it treats the cause of action for the operation of Sub Section (2) in an incorrect manner. The Labour Court treats the termination to be that cause of action, whereas, if we read the express language of the Section, it begins with the words "Where no settlement is arrived at in the course of any conciliation proceeding taken under this Act in regard to an industrial dispute referred to in Sub Section (1)...". Therefore, the remedy under Sub Section (2) would be available not on his termination or otherwise, but on the failure of the conciliation proceedings.

Viewed from this angle, it will have to be said that in this case since the failure of conciliation is only after the introduction of Sub Section (2), the workman was perfectly within his rights to approach the Labour Court directly under Sub Section (2) of Section 2A and not via Section 10 of the Act by way of reference to the Government. Even if the Sub Section is to be held as prospective in operation, at least in the present case, the failure of conciliation having been after the introduction of Sub Section (2), the workman is still be within his rights to approach the Labour Court under Sub Section (2) directly. In fact, the date of termination or dismissal would have no relevance with Sub Section (2) of the Act, and the only factor which would be relevant would be the failure of conciliation proceedings.

The order of the Labour Court is, therefore, clearly incorrect. It is set aside. The writ petition is allowed. The matter is remanded back V.S. Sirpurkar, J. to the Labour Court. The Labour Court shall be well advised to dispose of the matter on merits within six months of the receipt of the order at any rate. No costs.