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Judgment
S. Muralidhar, J.—The challenge in this petition is to an Award dated 1st June 2011 passed by the Labour Court rejecting the Petitioners application DID No. 63 of 2010 u/s 2A and 10(4) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 ("ID Act").
In the impugned Award of the Labour Court, it was held that the Petitioner who was employed as a Senior Manager-SDQ with the Respondent-management was not a workman in terms of Section 2(s) (iii) and (iv) of the ID Act.
On an analysis of the evidence, the Labour Court concluded that the nature of work assigned to the Petitioner was not of a clerical nature. She was assigned the work of preparing drafts of agreements, lease deeds, affidavits and maintaining the records and at tending telephone calls of the customers. She was assigned additional duties of disposing of the grievances of the customers on behalf of the management. In 2004, the Petitioner had been promoted as a Senior Manager on account of her good performance and had also been provided a Honda City car in lieu of travel allowance. Although there was no such document describing the nature of her duties, given the nature of the actual work performed by the Petitioner, it was concluded that she did not come within the purview of Section 2(s) of the ID Act.
This Court has heard Mr. H.K. Chaturvedi, learned counsel for the Petitioner at length. Mr. Chaturvedi has placed reliance upon the decisions in Sharad Kumar v. Government of NCT of Delhi, 2002 LLR 545, Pam Network Limited v. B. Balakrishna, 2011 (128) FLR 819 (Kam); Life insurance Corporation of India v. Industrial Tribunal, 2001 LLR 1161 (Ker); Bettish India Limited v. Presiding Officer, Labour Court, 2003 LLR 293 (Del), Sunita B. Vatsaraj v. Karnataka Bank Limited, 1999 LLR 729 (Bom); M/s. V.I.T. Cargo Movers Private Limited v. Ajit Kumar S. Puri, 2008 LLR 1236 (Bom); Mayank Desai v. Sayaji Iron and Engg. Co. Limited, 2011 LLR 536 (Guj).
Learned counsel for Petitioner submits that the designation of the Petitioner as a Senior Manager was per se not determinative of the fact that she was not a workman within the meaning of Section 2(s) of the Act. He urged that on the basis of the evidence produced before the Labour Court, the Petitioner ought to have been held to be a workman.
This Court is unable to agree with the above submission. The decisions cited by learned counsel for the Petitioner turned on the peculiar facts of those cases. The evidence led in the present case does supp ort the case of the management that the Petitioner was performing managerial functions and could not he held to be a workman. There is no error in the reasoning or the conclusion arrived at by the Labour Court.
The writ petition is dismissed.