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Judgment
Rajiv Narain Raina, J.—This is an application for review of the judgment and order dated 25.4.2013. Against that order, the petitioners had filed Letters Patent Appeal No. 1078 of 2013 in which the following order was passed on 25.4.2013:-
It is argued before us that though the Ld. Single Judge has made a reference to clauses 5.1 to 5.4 of the memorandum of settlement of the year 1999 but the same has not been considered alongwith other provisions thereof. If it is so, the appellant may approach Ld. Single Judge by filing a Review Application. However, it is made clear that if he fails to succeed therein, his right to file an Appeal shall remain intact. This appeal stands disposed off with the observations made above
It was apparently argued in the intra court appeal that in the judgment, a reference to Clauses 5.1 to 5.4 of the Settlement of 1999 had been made but the same was not considered along with other provisions thereof. In the judgment, Clauses 5.1 to 5.4 inter alia have been noticed, considered and dealt with. In more than one part of the judgment, this Court interpreted Clauses 5.1 to 5.4 at page 14 of the judgment and rightly or wrongly found no provision in it containing any mechanism which could block of capable of denying the workers at Faridabad, the right to equal pay for equal work when the work performed by the two set of employees was qualitatively and quantitatively the same and performed under one roof.
When the matter was argued before the Single Judge the operating settlement with respect to the dispute were concededly the 1999 settlements. It is well settled that a settlement under industrial law can only be replaced by another settlement even after the expiry of the period specified in the settlement. The settlements of 2002-03 and 2007 do not cover the matter in issue and, therefore, no benefit can be derived from Clauses 9 and 10 of the Faridabad settlement of 2007 which point has been canvassed in this review application. Clauses 5.1 to 5.4 are reproduced hereunder as they were considered but not reproduced in the judgment under review:-
5.1 It is argued to discontinue all the existing efficiency payment schemes, production, incentive schemes or super incentive schemes or any other scheme by whatever name called providing for additional connected with the level of production/productivity.
5.2 The Management however agrees to protect the earnings of its existing Workmen from such scheme(s) by payment of ad-hoc allowance, as part of wages. For working out the said ad-hoc allowance, the monthly average of highest yearly earning during any of the past 4 financial years from April 1994 to March, 1998 shall be taken into consideration. The amount so protected shall be Rs. 1620/- p.m. For Direct Workmen and Rs. 1134/- p.m. For Indirect Workmen, based on the average of financial year 1996-97. This protected amount has been made part of the Ad-hoc allowance referred to in the clause 4.10.
5.3 The above Adhoc allowance will not be payable to any Workman employed after the date of signing of this Settlement.
5.4 The Adhoc allowance so determined will remain fixed for each existing Workman irrespective of redeployment in any new work area/Unit in future, subject to the condition, however, that if any indirect workman becomes direct workman as defined in Annexure P-5, he will get ad-hoc allowance as applicable to direct workman of his parent division as on date of agreement. Likewise, a direct workman being re-deployed/transferred to an indirect job will get adhoc allowance as admissible to indirect workman of his parent division as on date of agreement.
This Court also noticed Clause 4.10 of the Surajpur Settlement of 1999 which entitled the workmen to adhoc allowance of Rs. 3850/- per month. Clause 5.2 lays down the formula of working out adhoc allowance and settles that the protected amount arrived at becomes part of adhoc allowance referred to in Clause 4.10. Once the change over takes place, only then Clause 5.3 will apply which lays down and means that the pre-formula of adhoc allowance shall not be payable to any workman after the date of signing of the settlement. At the hearing, Mr. Mutneja, had identified Clause 5.3 to hammer his case for review. He was, however, not able to point out from the text of the review application or in his oral submissions that what was meant by the petitioner''s contention noticed in the appellate order as to which of the ''other provisions thereof'' of the settlement of 1999 which has not been considered in the light of Clause 5.1 to 5.4. This Court though had not reproduced the text of Clauses 5.1 to 5.4 in the body of the judgment, but had duly considered their impact. As a matter of fact, the heart of the matter as has been pointed out in the judgment under review is the question of discrimination and the applicability of the principle of equal pay for equal work resulting from transfer of 109 employees from U.P. to the petitioner''s plant in Haryana. In the garb of review, the petitioners want this Court to change its opinion which is not the scope of review jurisdiction under Order 47 Rule 1 and Section 114 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
The view expressed rightly or wrongly will remain subject to appeal. No ground is made out to review the orders dated 25.4.2013. The review application fails and is dismissed.