Court invoked its special jurisdiction to settled down dispute of Workmen, and held their dues’ settlement with lump sum amount for doing complete justice between parties
Civil Appeal No. 4858- 4859 of 2016
Bench: Justice Kurian Joseph; Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman
Case Brief: In the present case, the appellants have brought challenge before this bench against the judgement and order of 2015 made by the High Court of Bombay, by which the writ petition of Appellants was dismissed by that court, by allowing the writ petition of respondent. The appellants here are workmen and initially they started litigation way back in the year 1991 by approaching before the Labour Court and thereafter, before the Industrial Court against the dismissal of the claim by Labour court. Then the High court also set aside the orders of the Labour Court and Industrial Court by consent, and the matter was remanded to the Labour Court in 1996, then again Labour Court dismissed the complaint, in 1997. The Industrial Tribunal thereafter allowed the complaint and directed reinstatement of the workmen, but without any backwages, in 1998. Thus, two writ petitions were preferred by the both the parties before High Court, in which the aforesaid decision was taken by the high court, and held that the retrenchment was in order. Now, workmen brought this matter before this bench. The bench considered, here that the in fact there were thousands of the employees who have been discharged on VRS by the Management- Respondent and also in fact that out of the sixty- five people, who pursued the litigation, 59 people have already gone on VRS or otherwise, as such the bench decided that in the interest of Justice, the appellants are to be paid a lump sum amount towards their settlement of all dues. Thus, the bench fixed this amount as it felt that to do complete justice between the parties, it would be appropriate that the appellants are given an amount of Ten lakh rupees each. Also, bench also made it clear that the said amount should carry the rate of interest of 18 per cent from the date of passing of award by the Industrial Tribunal. Also, such amount, as per bench, will not be including the claims of workmen towards gratuity and provident fund. As such, the appeal is disposed of by this bench with such directions, by invoking its special jurisdiction under Article 142 of the Constitution of India. Also, bench confirmed that the said judgement should not be treated as precedent.
Read the Judgement: Ghanshyam Sukhdeo Gaikwad and Ors Vs Bajaj Auto Ltd. & Ors