Manjitsingh v. King Airways; Pritam Singh v. N.D. Kathuria

2. The appellants claiming themselves to be industrial workmen had approached the Labour Court with separate petitions under Section 33-C(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 for claiming their unpaid wages etc. The Labour Court allowed those petitions and calculated the amount of wages etc. payable by the respondentmanagement vide order dated 14.09.2009. The appellants, however, felt aggrieved as the interest which was also claimed on the arrears was not awarded. So, they fled three writ petitions in this Court which stand rejected vide impugned order dated 12.02.2013 by the learned Single Judge Bench. The respondent-management had also felt aggrieved by the decision of the Labour Court accepting the appellants to be 'workmen' and so italso filed three separate appeals but those appeals came to be dismissed for non-prosecution.

3. Learned counsel for the appellants while making his submissions submitted that even ifthe labour court had no jurisdiction to award interest on the arrears ofthe dues ofthe appellants, at least after the filing ofthe 33-C(2) petitions and till the payment was made interest could have been awarded and more, particularly, when the delay in the disposal of the petitions was attributable to the respondent herein and which fact has been noticed even by the learned Single Judge in para No.18 ofthe impugned order. r

4. A perusal of the impugned order of the learned Single Judge shows that for denying the relief of interest on the amount of dues which were found to bepayable to the appellants bythe labour Court reliance was placed upon a judgment of this Court in the case of ''''Union of India vs. The Presiding Officer, Central Government Labour Court and another", 1984(2) AISLJ 567. The observations made inparagraph 21 ofthe said judgment relied upon by the learned Single Judge are as under: "21. Learned counselfor the workman submits that the deputation allowance become due to the workman in 1974 and the same has not been paid as yet. He submits that the petitioner should be directed to pay 12 percent interest from the date the amount became due and payable till realization. He refers to Gammon India v. Niranjan Dass, wherein it has been observed that the workman was unlawfully kept out ofservice and therefore it was just that the employer should pay all arrears with 12per cent interest That was a case ofretrenchment. Thepresentproceedings are udner Section 33C(2) ofthe Act. The Jurisdiction ofthe Labour Court under Section 33C (2) of the Act is only to compute the benefit and not to confer any new benefit 1, therefore, do notfind any reason to direct payment ofany interest in the amount due to theworlonan onaccount ofdeputation allowance."

5. Learned counsel for the appellant has submitted that in this judgment relied upon by the learned Single Judge though interest was denied to the workman n arrears of deputation allowance found due to him but inexercise ofthe equity jurisdiction this Court should award some interest to the appellants who have been fighting for their dues for about 17years now.

6. However, inour view, no such relief which is not permissible to be given under Section 33-C(2) cannot be given by this Court in exercise ofequity jurisdiction and the learned Single Judge cannot be said to have erred in any way in following the decision ofthe earlier judgment on the point. We do not find any good reason to interfere with the decision ofthe learned Single Judge.

7. These appeals are, therefore, dismissed. We, however, make it clear that disposal of these appeals will not have any bearing on the appeals filed by the respondent-management if at all the same, which ^ at present stand dismissed for non-prosecution, are restored after considering the restoration applications which according to the counsel for the respondent already stand filed but not so far listed before the Court. r P.K. BHASm, J V.P.VM^jA^ NOVEMBER 12,2013 aj