THE SIRSILK LTD. AND OTHERS versus GOVERNMENT OF ANDHRA PRADESH & ANOTHER

J.-These three appeals on certificates raise the same question and will be dealt with together. It will be enough to refer the facts of one appeal only i.e., No. 220, to under· stand the point arising for decision, the facts in the other appeals being similar.

p. 450

Briefly the facts in appeal No. 220 are that an order referring certain disputes between the appellant and its workmen was made to the Industrial Tribunal, Andhra Pradesh on June 6, l 'J56. The tribunal sent its award to Government in September, 1957. Under s. 17 of the Industrial Disputes Act, No. XIV of 1947 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). the award has to be published by the appropriate government within a period of thirty days from the date of its receipt by the governme11t in such manner as the government thinks fit. Before, however, the Government could publish the award under s. 17, the parties to the dispute which had been referred for adjudication came to a settlement and on October 1, 1957, a letter was written to Government signed jointly on behalf of the employrr and the employees intimating that the dispute," liich had been pending before the tribunal, had been settled and a request was made to Government not to publish the award. The Government, however, expressed its inability to withhold the publication of the award, the view taken by the Government being that s. 17 of the Act wa.~ mandatory and the Government was bound to publish the award. Thereupon the appellants filed writ petitions beK>re the High Court under Art. 226 of the Constitution praying that the Government may be directed not to publish the award sent to it by the industrial tribunal. The High Court held that s. 17 was mandatory and it wa~ not open to Government to withholi:I publication of an award sent to it by an industrial tribunal. Therefore it was not open to the High Court to direct the Government not to publish the award when the law enjoined upon it to publish it. The writ petitions were therefore dismissed. There were then a:;iplications for certificates which were granted and that is how the matter has come up before us.

pp. 450–451

The main contention on behalf of the appel· !ants before us is that s. 17 of the Act when it pro· vides for the publication of an award is directory and not mandatory. In the alternative, it is conteaded that even ifs. 1 7 is mandatory some via media has to be found in view of the conflict that would arise between an award published under s. 17 (1) and a settlement which is binding under s. 18 (1), and therefore where there is a settlement which is binding under s. 1$ (1), it would be open to the Government not to publish the award in these special circumstances.

p. 451

We are of op1mon that the first contention on behalf of the appellants, namely, that the publica· tion of the award under s. 17 (1) is directory cannot be accepted. Section 17 (I.) lays down that every award shall within a period of thirty days from the date of its receipt by the appropriate government be published in such manner as the appropriate government thinks fit. The use of the word "shall" is a pointer to s. 17(1) being mandatory, though undoubtedly in certain circumstances the word "shall" used in a statute may be equal to the word "may". In the present case, however, it seems to us that when the word "shall" was used in s. 17(1) the intention was to give a mandate to Government to publish the award within the time fixed therein. This is en· forced by the fact that sub-s. (2) of s. 17 provides that "the award published under sub-section (1) shall be final and shall not be called in question by any court in any manner whatscever". Obviously when the legislature intended the award on pc1blication to be final, it could n0t have intended that the Government concerned had the power to withhold publication of the awdnl. Further s. 17 A shows that whatcwr power the Go,·ernmcnt has in the matter of an award is specifically provid<d in that section, whid1 allows the Government in certain circumstances to declare that the award shall riot become enfo:·ceable on the expiry of thirty days from the date of its publication, which under s. 17 A is the date of the e11force,1bility of the award. Section 17-A also cnvisaE(eS that the award must be published though the Government may declare in certain conting ·ncies that it may not be enforceable. Subsection (2) of s. l 7A also gives power to Government to make an order rejecting or modifying the award within ninety days from the date of iti publication. It is clear therefore reading s 17 and s. 17 A together that the intention behind s. Ii (I) is that a duty is cast on Grivcrnment to puhli,h the award within thirty days of its receipt and the provision for i•s publication is mandatory and not merely directory.

pp. 451–452

This however docs not end the matter, particularly after t!1c amendment of the Act by Central Act XXXVI of 1956 by which s. 18 (I) was introduced in the Act. Section 18 (l) provides that a settlement arrived at by agreement between the employer and workmen utherwise th rn in the coune of conciliation proc,·cding shall he binding on the partir' to 1\w agreement. ·'Settlement" is dt"finrd in s. 2 (p) a' meaning a settlement arrived at in the cour'c of co:1ciliation proceeding and includes a wri:ten ag,·,·cment between the employer and workmen arri,,erl at otherwise than in the course of conciliation proceeding where such agreement h~s been si.r;n··d by the parties thereto in such manner as may be prescribed and a copy thereof has been sent to the appropriate Government and the conciliation officer. When such an agreement has bee~ _ar~iv­ ed at, though not in the course of conc1hat10n proceedingi, it becomes a settlement and s. 18 (I) lays down that such a settlement shall be binding on the parties thereto. Further s. 18 (3) provides that an award which has become en force a hie shall be binding on all parties to the industrial dispute and others. Section 19 ( 1) provides that a set clement comes into operation on such date as is agreed upon by the parties to the dispute, and if no date is agreed upon, on the date on which the memorandum of settlement is signed by the parties to the dispute. In the present case the settlement that was arrived at between the parties to the dispute was signed on October 1, 1957, and as it had not fixed any date for its coming into force, it became operaiive from October 1, 1957 itself and was binding on the parties to the agreement who were also before the industrial tribunal and would be bound by the award after its publication.

pp. 452–453

The contention on behalf of the appellant in the alternative is this. It is said that the main purpose of the Act is to maintain peace between the parties in an industrial concern. Where therefore parties to an industrial dispute have reached a settlement which is binding under s. 18 (1), the dispute between them really comes to an end. In such a case it is urged that the settlement arrived at between the parties should be respected and industrial peace should not be allowed to be disturbed by the pu bli · cation of the award which might be different from the settlement. There is no do.ubt that a settlement of the dispute between the parties themselves is to be preferred, where it can be arrived at, to industrial adjudication, as the settlement is likely to lead to more lasting peace than an award, as it is arrived at by the free will of the parties and is a point.er to there being goodwill between them. Even though this may be so, we have still to reconcile the rn°.ndatory character of the provision contained in s. 1 i (l) for the pubJ;cation of th« award to tl1e equally mandatory character of the bir.di11g nature of the settlement arrived at between the parties as provided in s. l~ (!). Ordinarily there should be no difficulty about the matter, for if a settlement has been arrived a• between the partiC$ while the dispute is pending before the tribunal, the parties would file the settlement before the tribunal and the tribunal would make the award in accordance with the settleml'nt. In the S/ntr of liil111r v. /J. N. Ganguly ('), dealing with an argument urged before this Court that where a scttlcn1e11t has bLrn arrived at between the parties, while an indus1rial dispute is pending before a tribunal, the only remedy for giving effect to sach a sett!ernent would be to cancel the reference, this Court observed that though the Act did not contain any provision specifically authori!ing the industrial tribunal to record a compromise and pass an award in its terms corresponding to the provisions of 0. XX!II, r. 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure, it would be very unreasonable to assume that the industrial tribunal would insist upon dealing with the dispute on the merits even after it is informed that the dispute has been amicably settled between the panics, and th~re can be no doubt that if a dispute before a tribunal is ambicably settled, the tribunal would immcdbtely agree to make an award in terms of the settlement between the parties. In that case this Court dealt with what would happen if a settlement was arrived at while the matter was pending before the tribunal. The difficulty arises in the present case because the proceedings before the tribunal had come to an end, and the tribunal had sent its award to Government before the settiement was arrived at on October 1, 1957. Th~rc is no provision in the Act dealing with such a situation just as there was no provision in·the Act dealing 'with the situation which arose where the parties came to an agreement while the dispute was pending before the tribunal. This Court held in Gftnr;uly\~ case ('), that in such a situation the settlement or compromise would have to be filed before the tribunal and the tribunal would make an award . thereupon in accordance with the settlement. Difficulty, however, arises when the matter has gone beyond the purview of the tribunal as in the present case. That difficulty in our opinion ha~ to be resolved in order to avoid possible conflict between s. 18 ( 1) which makes the settlement arrived at between the parties otherwise than in the course of conciliation proceeding binding on the parties and the terms of an award which are binding under s. 18 (3) on publication and which may not be the same as the terms of the settlement binding under s. 18 ( 1 ). The only way in our view to resolve the possible conflict which would arise between a settlement which is binding under s. 18 (1) and an award which may become binding under s. 18 (3) on publication is to withhold the publication of the award once the. Government has been informed jointly by the parties thilt a settlement binding under s. 18 {I) has been arrived at. It is true that s. 17 ( 1) is mandatory and ordinarily the Government has to publish an award sent to it by the tribunal ; but where a situation like the one in the present cases arises which may lead to a conflict between a settlement under s. 18 (l) and an award binding under s. 18 (3) on publication, the only solution is to withhold the a ward frcm publication. This would not in our opinion in any way affect the mandatory nature of the provision in s. 17 (I), for the Government would ordinarily have to publish the award but for the special situation arising in such cases.

pp. 453–455

The matter may be looked at in another way. The reference to the tribunal is for the purpose of resolving the dispute that may have arisen between employers and their workmen. Where a settlement is arrived at between the parties to a dispute before the tribunal after the award has been submitted to Government but before its publication, there is in fact no dispute left to be resolved by the publication of the award. In such a case, the award sent to Government may very well be considered to haw become infructuous and so the Government should refrain from ~ublishing such an award because no dispute ramains to be resolved by it.

pp. 455–456

It is however urged that the view wc have taken may create a difficulty inasmucl1 as it is possible for one party or the other represent t<• the Government that the settlement has been arrived at as a result of fraud, misrepresentation or undue influence or that it is not binding as the workmen's representative had bartered away their interests for penonal considerations. This difficulty, if it is a difficulty, will always be there even in a case where a settlement has been arrived at ordinarily betw~en the parties and is binding under s. 18 (I), even though no dispute has been referred in that connection to a tribunal. Ordinarily, however, such difficulty should not arise at all, if we read ss. 2 (p), 18 (I) and 19 (I) of the Act together. Section 2 (p) lays down what a settlement is and it includes "a written agreement between the employer and workmen arrived at otherwise than in the course of conciliation proceeding where such agreement has been signed hy the parties thereto in such manner as may be prescribed and a copy thereof has been sent to the approprtiate government and the conciliation officer". Therefore the settlement has to be signed in the manner prescribed by the rules and a copy of it has to be sent to the Government and the conciliation officer. This should ordinarily ensure that the agreement has been arrived at without any of those defects to which we have referred above, if it is in accordance with the rules. Then s. 18 (I) provides that such a settlement would be binding between the parties and 19 (1) provides that it shall come into force on the date it was signed or on the date on which it sa1s that it shall come into force. Therefore 'as soon as an agreement is signed in the prescribed manner and a copy of it is sent to the Government and the conciliation officer it becomes binding at once on the parties to it and comes into operation on the date it is signed or on the date which might be mentioned in it for its coming into operation. In such a case there is no scope for any inquiry by Government as to the bona fide character of the settlement which becomes binding and comes into operation once it is signed in the manner provided in the rules and a copy is sent to the Government and the conciliation officer. The settlement having thus become binding and in many cases having already come into operation, there is no scope for any inquiry by the Government as to the bona fides of the settlement. In such a case in view of the possibility of conflict between the settlement in view of its binding nature under s. 18 ( l) and an award which might become binding on publication under s. 18 (3), the proper course for the Government is to withhold the award from publication to avoid this conflict. If any dispute of the nature referred to above arises as to a settlement, that would be another industrial dispute, which the Government may refer for adjudication and if on such an adjudication the settlement is found not to be binding under s. 18 (1) of the Act it will always be open to the Government then to publish the award which it had withheld, though we do not think that such instances are likely to be anything but extremely rare. We are therefore of opinion that though s. 17 (1) is mandatory and the Government is bound to £Ublish the award received by it from an industrial tribunal, the situation arising in a case like the present is of an exceptional nature and requires reconciliation betweens. 18 (1) ands. 18 (3), and in such a situation the only way to reconcile the two provisions is to withhold the publication of the award, as a bindini settlement ha.~ already come into force in order to avoid possible conflict between a binding settlement under s. 18 (I) and a biuding award undrr s. 18 (3). In such a situation we arc of opinion that the Government ought not to publish the award under s. 17 (I) and in cases where governmrnt is going to publish it, it can be directed not to publish the award in view of the binding settlement arrived at between the parties under s. 18 (I) with respect to the very matters which were the subject-matter of adjudication under the award. We therefore allow the appeals and direct the Government not to pu bfah the awards sent to it by the industrial tribunal in these cases in view of the b;nding nature of the settlements arrived at between the parties under s. 18 (I) of the Act. In the circumstances we order the parties to bear their own costs.

pp. 456–458

.4 ppea/s allawed. HARJNAGAR CANE FARM A:-10 OTHERS

p. 458

STATE OF BIHAR A:'{D OTHERS (P. B. K. ~-

p. 458

and K. C. GUPTA JJ.)

p. 458

b1dU&trial Di pule-Agricultural operation, if constitute. "indtMlry"-InatUlrial Di•putu Act, J.947 (U of 1947) •· 2(j).

p. 458

The appellant in appeal C. A. No. of 196 I is a private limited company registered under the Indian Companies Act. It mainly produce. sugarcane. It also produces wheat, paddy etc., for sale in the market. Further undertakes contract works for maintaining tram lines, weigh bridge, The appellant in the other appeal has been purchased hy Harinagar Sugar Mills Ltd. and since then is functioning as a department of the said Mills.

p. 458