Lloyds Bank Ltd. vs Lloyds Ank Indian Staff Association

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Civil Appeal No. 79 of 1953

Decision Date: 20 April 1953

Coram: Patanjali Sastri, B.K. Mukherjea, Ghulam Hasan

The case was styled Lloyds Bank Ltd. versus The Lloyds Ank Indian Staff Association and was heard by the Supreme Court of India on 20 April 1953. The judgment was authored by Chief Justice Patanjali Sastri, with the bench comprising Chief Justice B. K. Mukherjea and Justice Ghulam Hasan. The Court observed that the appeal presented no substantive question because the relief that the appellant sought was already available to him. The appeal originated from an application filed under Article 226 of the Constitution, wherein the appellant requested a writ of certiorari to set aside an award rendered by the All India Industrial Tribunal (Bank Disputes) on 5 January 1950, and alternatively asked for a writ of prohibition to prevent the opposite party from enforcing that award.

At the preliminary stage, several objections were raised concerning the maintainability of the application, and the learned judges upheld those objections, consequently dismissing the application. One objection asserted that Article 226 could not apply because the award had been published and declared binding by the Government on 17 January 1950, thereby becoming final before the Constitution came into force on 26 January 1950. Mr Chaudhri answered this objection in the same manner as he had answered a similar objection in the connected appeal Lloyds Bank Ltd. v. The Lloyds Bank Indian Staff Association, Civil Appeal No 79 of 1953, which dealt with the applicability of Article 136. He further noted that the High Court possessed jurisdiction to issue prerogative writs even before the Constitution commenced. A second preliminary objection was that the Tribunal had ceased to exist, its members now engaged in other official duties, and therefore the writs sought could not be issued by the Court.

In support of his appeal, Mr Chaudhri contended, albeit weakly, that although the Tribunal was not functioning, it continued in a state of suspended animation because, under a proper construction of Section 7 of the Industrial Disputes Act, the Government should be deemed to have created not an ad hoc Tribunal for the specific disputes referred to it but a permanent Tribunal that operated intermittently. The learned judges below rejected this argument, and the present Court concurs with that view. Moreover, the award that the appellant wishes to have formally set aside can no longer be regarded as valid or operative, in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in United Commercial Bank Ltd. v. Their Workmen (B), where it was broadly held that awards purportedly made by the same Tribunal and signed by only two of its members, with the third member absent on other duty, were void and inoperative because Section 16 of the Industrial Disputes Act mandates that all members of the Tribunal must sign an award. Consequently, the appeal must fail, and the Court dismissed it with costs.

In its reasoning, the Court referred to Section sixteen of the Industrial Disputes Act, which expressly provides that any award issued by a Tribunal must bear the signatures of every member of that Tribunal. The Court explained that this statutory condition is mandatory, and that the absence of the signature of even a single member renders the award void and without legal effect. Applying this requirement to the award under consideration, the Court observed that the award could not be treated as a valid and operative determination because it did not satisfy the signing requirement prescribed by the legislation. Consequently, the Court held that the appeal raised by the petitioner could not succeed. The Court noted that the reasons for rejecting the appeal had already been set out in the preceding portions of the judgment, and that those reasons, coupled with the statutory defect in the award, left no basis for granting any relief. Accordingly, the Court ordered the dismissal of the appeal. In addition, the Court directed that the costs of the proceedings be awarded against the appellant, thereby concluding the matter. The order therefore terminated the proceedings and restored the situation that existed before the contested award was made, and no further hearing was scheduled, leaving the dispute fully resolved.