Proprietor, Lenox Photo Mount Manufacturing Co., Madurai vs Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Madurai and Another

Veeraswami, J.

(1) This petition is to quash an order of the Labour Court, Madurai, made on an application filed by the respondents under S. 33-C(2) of the

Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 for computation of retrenchment benefits and arrears of salary. The respondent claimed a total sum of Rs. 637.50

comprised of notice pay at Rs. 85, retrenchment compensation at Rupees 127.50 and arrears of salary at Rs. 425 for the period from 1-2-1961

to 30-6-1961. The petitioner contended that the respondent had voluntarily stopped from service and that, therefore, he would not be entitled to

retrenchment compensation. The Labour Court found this point in favour of the petitioner, But, as regards the arrears of salary, the Labour Court

found that the respondent would be entitled to arrears for the period form 1-2-1961 to 5-6-1961 and that the petition was also entitled to a

deduction of Rs. 30 from the arrears to salary for that period. On that basis, the labour Court directed the petitioner to pay a sum of Rs. 321.33.

(2) The ground on which the petitioner impugns the order of the Labour Court is that it had no jurisdiction to make it. The argument is that the

petitioners having raised a plea of discharge of the arrears of salary and thus disputed the claim thereto, the determination of this question would be

outside the purview of S. 33-C. It is also said that a claim like arrears of salary which does not call for computation in terms of money value, will

not be within the purview of S. 33-C(2). On the first point, the Labour Court, as a matter of fact, found that the plea of discharge was not

established. No ground has been taken in the writ petition against this finding. We should, therefore, proceed on the basis that the petitioner was in

arrears of salary which the Labour Court has ordered payment of. Alternatively, in our view, S. 33-C(2) is also wide enough to enable the Labour

Court to decide the plea of discharge as a jurisdictional question. It is well settled that where the ''jurisdiction'' of a Court is questioned, that Court

will be competent to decide that question and for that purpose also to determine the relative facts bearing on the question.

(3) No doubt, one of us in Management of the Lakshmi Mills Co. Ltd. Vs. Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Coimbatore and Another, took the

view that the scope of sub-sec (2) of S. 33-C as co-existence with that. 33(1). But that view can no longer prevail in view of The Central Bank of

India Ltd. Vs. P.S. Rajagopalan etc., . In that case, the Supreme Court, on a consideration of the scope of S. 33-C, expressed the view that sub-

sec. (2) of that section takes within its purview cases of workmen who claimed that the benefit to which they are entitled should be computed in

terms of money even though the right to the benefit on which their claim it based is disputed by the employers. Learned counsel for the petitioner

contended that in this case it is not the right to arrears of salary that is in dispute, but what is indispose is whether the arrears claimed by the

respondent has been discharged, and this question was not competent for the Labour Court to decide. We are unable to accept this contention.

The right or claim to the arrears, which the respondent asked the Labour Court to compute, would necessarily depend on a decision whether the

plea of discharge was well founded, and, in order to decide the application of the respondent, it was, as an incidental question, necessary to decide

it. We hold therefore that the Labour Court acted within its jurisdiction in deciding the question.

(4) On the other question, the contention for the petitioner is that the word ""benefit"" in S. 33-C(2) should be confined to non-monetary benefit

which is required to be converted into terms of money. It is true that this specific question was not expressly decided by The Central Bank of India

Ltd. Vs. P.S. Rajagopalan etc., . In fact, as we find form the judgment, no dispute in that regard was raised before the Supreme Court. But is may

be seen from the facts of that case, the claim on behalf of the workmen was to extra remuneration for additional work done and it was the

additional remuneration that the workmen asked to be computed in terms of money. It was therefore not a case of non-monetary benefit. Apart

from that, in our view, there is no reason to limit the scope of the word ""benefit"" in S. 33-C(2). If sub-section (2), is, as has been held by the

Supreme Court, of a wider scope than sub-section (1) of S. 33-C, the word ""benefit"" as it seems to us, would include also money but requiring

computation. The word ""computed"" is not to be understood only as involving a complex process of arithmetic or calculation. If, for instance, a

workman claims salary at a particular ate per month and on that basis makes a claim for arrears of salary, we do not see why it is not a benefit

which can be computed in terms of money. The word ""computed"" merely means, as we think, calculation, whether simple or otherwise.

(5) The petition is dismissed with costs. Counsel''s fee Rs. 100/-.

(6) Petition dismissed.