Workmen of Dimakuchi Tea Estate vs The Management of Dimakuchi Tea Estate

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

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Civil Appeal No. 297 of 1956

Decision Date: 4 February 1958

Coram: Sudhi Ranjan Das, S.K. Das, A.K. Sarkar

In the matter styled Workmen of Dimakuchi Tea Estate versus the Management of Dimakuchi Tea Estate, the Supreme Court delivered its judgment on 4 February 1958. The petitioner consisted of the workmen of Dimakuchi Tea Estate and the respondent was the management of the same estate. The judgment was authored by a bench comprising Chief Justice Sudhi Ranjan Das and Judges S K Das and A K Sarkar. The case is reported in the 1958 volumes of the All India Reporter at page 353 and in the Supreme Court Reporter at page 1156. The dispute concerned the interpretation of the definition of an industrial dispute under section 2(k) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (Act XIV of 1947), particularly the meaning of the term “any person.” The central question for decision was whether a dispute raised by the workmen relating to a person who was not themselves a workman could fall within the definition of an industrial dispute as it existed before the 1956 amendments.

The appellants, who were the workmen of Dimakuchi Tea Estate, had taken up the cause of Dr K P Banerjee, who served as Assistant Medical Officer. Dr Banerjee had been dismissed without being heard, receiving instead a month’s salary in lieu of notice, which he accepted and thereafter left the garden. The dispute concerning his dismissal was referred by the Government to a tribunal for adjudication under section 10 of the Act. Both the initial Tribunal and the Appellate Industrial Tribunal held that because Dr Banerjee was not a workman within the meaning of the Act, the dispute could not be classified as an industrial dispute under section 2(k).

The Supreme Court, per the majority opinion of Chief Justice Das, Justice S K Das and Justice Sarkar, held that the phrase “any person” in section 2(k) should not be given its ordinary meaning. Instead, it must be read in the context of the Act and the legislative intent. The Court stressed that the expression cannot be equated with the words “workman” or “employee.” Accordingly, the Court formulated two criteria for a dispute to qualify as an industrial dispute under the section: first, the dispute must be a genuine dispute capable of being resolved by granting relief from one party to the other; second, the individual about whom the dispute is raised must be a person in whose employment, non-employment, terms of employment, or conditions of labour the parties to the dispute have a direct or substantial interest, with the assessment depending on the specific facts and circumstances of each case.

Applying these criteria, the Court concluded that the present dispute concerned a person who was not a workman and who belonged to a completely different category. Consequently, the dispute did not satisfy the definition of an industrial dispute in section 2(k) and the appeal failed. The Court approved the decision in Narendra Kumar Sen v All India Industrial Disputes (Labour Appellate) Tribunal, (1953) 55 Bom L.R. 125, and distinguished the earlier decision in Western India Automobile Association v The Industrial Tribunal, Bombay, [1949] F.C.R. 321. The judgment also recorded a discussion of case law, and Justice Sarkar noted that there is no reason why the words “any person” in section 2(k) should be given their natural meaning so as to include an employee who is not a workman within the meaning of the Act.

In interpreting section 2(k) of the Industrial Disputes Act, the Court held that the words of the section must be given their ordinary meaning and should not be stretched to bring an employee who does not fall within the statutory definition of “workman” within its scope. Consequently, a dispute that involves a person who is not a workman can still be regarded as an industrial dispute under that provision. The Court explained that the chief purpose of the Act is to preserve industrial peace, and the Act does not require that the workmen’s interest be a prerequisite for the existence of an industrial dispute. The Court observed that such an interest is difficult to define, and making it a condition for an industrial dispute would frustrate the object of the legislation. The Court referred to the authorities Western India Automobile Association v. The Industrial Tribunal of Bombay [1949] F.C.R. 321; Narendra Kumar Sen v. The All India Industrial Disputes (Labour Appellate) Tribunal (1953) 55 Bom. L.R. 125; and United Commercial Bank Ltd. v. Kedar Nath Gupta (1952) 1 L.L.J. 782. Even if it were assumed that the workmen must have an interest for a dispute to be industrial, the Court found that the facts of the present case satisfy that requirement and therefore fall within the ambit of section 2(k).

The appeal, designated as Civil Appeal No. 297 of 1956, was taken by special leave from the judgment and order dated 30 August 1955 of the Labour Appellate Tribunal of India, Calcutta, in Appeal No. Cal. 220 of 1954. Counsel for the appellants comprised senior members of the bar, while counsel for the respondent represented the management side. The judgment was delivered on 4 February 1958, with the primary judgment rendered by Justice Das and a separate opinion by Justice Sarkar. The Court noted that the matter raised a subtle yet significant question concerning the precise scope and effect of the definition clause in section 2(k) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The factual backdrop involved the workmen of Dimakuchi Tea Estate, represented by the Assam Chah Karmachari Sangha of Dibrugarh, and the management of the same estate located in Darrang district, Assam. The dispute originated with the appointment of Dr. K. P. Banerjee as assistant medical officer of the estate effective 1 November 1950. His appointment was conditional upon a satisfactory medical report and a three-month probationary period. The letter of appointment stipulated that during probation his suitability for permanent employment would be evaluated, and if deemed unsuitable he would receive seven days’ written notice of termination. The letter further warned that misconduct could lead to immediate dismissal, and that successful completion of probation would result in confirmation in the garden’s service. In February 1951, events related to Dr. Banerjee’s employment became the subject of the industrial dispute now before the Court.

Banerjee received an increment of Rs 5 per mensem, but on 21 April he was served with a letter from Mr Booth, the manager of the tea estate, which stated, “It has been found necessary to terminate your services with effect from the 22nd instant. You will of course receive one month’s salary in lieu of notice.” Because the termination notice did not contain any explanation, Dr Banerjee wrote to the manager asking the reason for his dismissal. The manager replied, indicating that the reasons for the discharge were medical in nature and beyond his own authority, known to Dr Cox, but added that a principal ground for the dismissal was “the deceitful manner in which you added figures to the requirements of the last medical indent after it had been signed by Dr Cox, evidence of which is in my hands.” The grievance of Dr Banerjee was then taken up by the Mangaldai Circle of the Assam Chah Karmachari Sangha, whose secretary wrote to the manager of Dimakuchi Tea Estate requesting clarification of the reasons for the discharge. The manager responded that Dr K P Banerjee had been terminated on the basis of incompetence in his medical duties and that the chief medical officer, Dr Cox, had found him lacking sufficient knowledge of the simple everyday microscopic and laboratory work that is expected of every assistant medical officer in tea-garden practice. The manager further alleged that Dr Banerjee had administered a faulty, inexpert and clumsy quinine injection to an assistant named Mr Peacock, which produced an extremely acute and severe illness that almost caused paralysis of the patient’s leg. The appellants were not satisfied with the manager’s reasons, and conciliation proceedings were subsequently attempted, though the details of those proceedings are not essential for the present discussion and they failed to resolve the dispute over Dr Banerjee’s termination. The matter was then referred to a tripartite Appellate Board comprising the Labour Commissioner of Assam and two representatives, one each from the Assam branch of the Indian Tea Association and the Assam Chah Karmachari Sangha. The Board recommended that Dr Banerjee be reinstated with effect from the date of his discharge. Following the Board’s recommendation, the respondent apparently offered a sum equal to twenty-eight months’ salary and allowances in lieu of reinstatement, an offer which the appellants rejected. In the interim, Dr Banerjee received a payment of Rs 306-1-0 on 22 May 1951 and subsequently left the tea garden. Later, on 23 December 1953, the Government of Assam issued a notification stating that an industrial dispute had arisen between the appellants and the respondent and that…

In 1953 the Governor of Assam decided that the industrial disagreement should be sent for adjudication to a Tribunal created under section 7 of the Industrial Disputes Act. Accordingly, the Governor referred the matter to Shri U. K. Gohain, who was then the Additional District and Sessions Judge, invoking clause (c) of sub-section (1) of section 10 of the Act. The reference to the Tribunal was framed in the following terms: (i) whether the management of Dimakuchi Tea Estate was justified in dismissing Dr. K. P. Banerjee, A. M. O.; and (ii) if the dismissal was not justified, whether Dr. Banerjee was entitled to reinstatement or any other relief in lieu thereof. Both parties filed written statements before Mr. Gohain. The respondent argued that Dr. Banerjee did not fall within the definition of “workman” as provided by the Act; consequently, the controversy could not be characterized as an industrial dispute within the meaning of the statute, and the Tribunal would therefore lack jurisdiction to adjudicate the merits. Mr. Gohain treated the issue of the applicability of the term “workman” as a preliminary question. After examining the statutory definition, he concluded, in his own words, that Dr. Banerjee was not a “workman,” and therefore his case did not constitute an industrial dispute under the Industrial Disputes Act. He held that, because the matter lay outside the Act’s definition, the Tribunal possessed no jurisdiction to grant any relief to Dr. Banerjee. The decision of Mr. Gohain was appealed to the Labour Appellate Tribunal of India at Calcutta. That Tribunal affirmed the lower Tribunal’s finding, holding that Dr. Banerjee was not a “workman” within the meaning of the Act. The Appellate Tribunal further observed that, for a controversy to be an industrial dispute under section 2(k), it must exist between an employer and a workman; there can be no industrial dispute between an employer and an employee who does not qualify as a workman. Accordingly, the Labour Appellate Tribunal dismissed the appeal. Subsequently, the appellants sought special leave to appeal to this Court. An order dated 14 March 1956 granted special leave, but limited it to the specific question of whether a dispute concerning a person who is not a workman falls within the definition of “industrial dispute” contained in section 2(k) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The Court noted that the issue of whether Dr. Banerjee was a workman had already been finally decided. Consequently, the Court proceeded on the premise that Dr. Banerjee was not a workman and was required to determine whether the dispute arising from his termination nevertheless qualified as an industrial dispute under the statutory definition.

The Court began by stating that the present task was to examine the definition clause of the Industrial Disputes Act, because the interpretation of that clause was the sole issue remaining for decision. The definition clause, set out in section 2(k), reads as follows: “Industrial dispute means any dispute or difference between employers and employers, or between employers and workmen, or between workmen and workmen, which is connected with the employment or non-employment or the terms of employment or with the conditions of labour of any person.” The Court then observed that the term “workman” is also defined in the Act, and that for the purpose of the present case the definition prior to the 1956 amendments was the applicable one. Accordingly, the Court declared that all relevant sections of the Act would be read as they existed before the 1956 amendments, and the amendments would be considered only if they bore directly on the question before the Court. The pre-amendment definition of “workman”, found in section 2(s), states: “Workman means any person employed (including an apprentice) in any industry to do any skilled or unskilled manual or clerical work for hire or reward and includes, for the purposes of any proceedings under this Act in relation to an industrial dispute, a workman discharged during that dispute, but does not include any person employed in the naval, military or air service of the Government.” Having set out the definitions, the Court articulated the central question: whether a dispute concerning a person who does not qualify as a “workman” under the Act can nonetheless fall within the scope of the definition contained in section 2(k). The Court analysed the definition clause and divided it logically into three components. The first component requires the existence of a “dispute or difference”. The second component requires that the dispute be between one of the prescribed categories of parties – either employers and employers, employers and workmen, or workmen and workmen. The third component demands that the dispute be “connected with the employment or non-employment or the terms of employment or with the conditions of labour of any person”. The Court explained that the first element simply denotes the presence of a real or substantial disagreement. The second element identifies the parties involved in that disagreement. The third element specifies the subject matter of the disagreement, which may relate either to (i) employment or non-employment, or (ii) the terms of employment or the conditions of labour, of any person. Counsel for the appellants argued that the first two elements of the definition were clearly satisfied in the present matter because there was a dispute concerning the termination of Dr K P Banerjee’s service, and that dispute was between the employer – the management of the Dimakuchi Tea Estate – and the workmen of that estate, even when the term “workmen” is interpreted in its restricted sense as defined in the Act. The Court noted that the difficulty arose on examination of the third component of the definition, which concerns the connection of the dispute with the employment matters of “any person”.

Learned counsel for the appellants argued that the phrase “of any person” appearing in the third part of the definition clause carried a very broad meaning. He contended that there was no justification for limiting the words “any person” to the expression “any workman,” a restriction that the lower tribunals had imposed. According to his submission, the dispute between the employer and the workers concerned the non-employment of a man named Dr K P Banerjee, who, although not a workman, was the subject of a disagreement. Therefore, counsel maintained, the matter fell within the definition of an industrial dispute. The court observed that, at first glance, the argument presented by the appellants possessed considerable persuasive force.

The court noted that the definition clause did not contain any qualifying or restricting language concerning the phrase “any person” in its third part. Consequently, any limitation on its scope had to be drawn only from what could be reasonably inferred from the clause itself or from other provisions of the Act. A careful examination, however, showed that “any person” could not be interpreted to mean literally everyone in the world. The subject matter of a dispute must relate either to (i) employment or non-employment or (ii) terms of employment or conditions of labour of some person. This requirement inherently limits the phrase, because a person with whom no employer-employee relationship ever existed, or could never exist, cannot be the focus of a dispute between an employer and workmen. Moreover, the court stressed that the definition clause must be read in the wider context of the Act’s subject matter and scheme, and it must be consistent with the objects and other provisions of the legislation. It recalled the well-established principle that when the meaning of statutory words is doubtful, they are to be understood in the sense that best harmonises with the purpose of the enactment and the intention of the legislature. Their meaning is derived not so much from strict grammatical or etymological considerations, nor even from popular usage, but from the context and the objective to be achieved, as explained in Maxwell’s “Interpretation of Statutes.” Accordingly, the court advised that the Act should be taken as a whole and its salient provisions examined. The long title of the Act declares its purpose to be “to make provision for the investigation and settlement of industrial disputes, and for certain other purposes,” a purpose reiterated in the preamble. Section 2, which contains the definitions, confirms that expressions assume the meanings assigned to them unless something in the subject or context renders them repugnant.

The judgment explained that the Act establishes several authorities, namely Works Committees, Conciliation Officers, Boards of Conciliation, Courts of Enquiry and Industrial Tribunals. The principal function of a Works Committee is to foster amicable relations between the employer and his workmen; to that end it is required to comment on matters of common interest or concern and to seek to resolve any material difference of opinion that may arise concerning such matters. Conciliation Officers are tasked with mediating disputes and promoting their settlement. A Board of Conciliation may likewise be constituted for the same purpose of encouraging settlement of an industrial dispute. A Court of Enquiry may be appointed to investigate any question that appears to be connected with or relevant to an industrial dispute. Section 7 of the Act empowers the appropriate Government to constitute one or more Tribunals for the adjudication of industrial disputes in accordance with the provisions of the Act. Chapter III contains the provisions relating to the reference of industrial disputes to Boards of Conciliation, Courts of Enquiry or Industrial Tribunals, and in the present case the reference was made under section 10 of that Chapter. Under section 10(c) of the Act, when the appropriate Government is of the opinion that any industrial dispute exists or is apprehended, it may at any time, by a written order, refer the dispute or any matter appearing to be connected with or relevant to the dispute to a Tribunal for adjudication. Chapter IV of the Act deals with the procedure, powers and duties of the authorities created under the Act. Where an industrial dispute has been referred to a Tribunal for adjudication, section 15 requires the Tribunal to conduct its proceedings expeditiously and to submit its award to the appropriate Government as soon as practicable after concluding the proceedings. Section 17 provides that the award of a Tribunal shall, within one month from the date of its receipt by the appropriate Government, be published in such manner as the Government thinks fit. Section 17-A adds that the award becomes enforceable after the expiry of thirty days from the date of its publication under section 17, and it also contains further provisions allowing the appropriate Government to modify or reject the award. Section 18, which is relevant to the present purpose, stipulates that an award which has become enforceable shall be binding on (a) all parties to the industrial dispute; (b) all other parties summoned to appear in the proceedings as parties to the dispute, unless the Tribunal records that they were summoned without proper cause; (c) where a party referred to in clause (a) or (b) is an employer, his heirs, successors or assigns with respect to the establishment to which the dispute relates; and (d) where a party referred to in clause (b) consists of workmen, all persons employed in the establishment or part of the establishment to which the dispute relates on the date of the dispute, as well as any persons who subsequently become employed in that establishment or part.

The Court explained that when clause (a) or clause (b) involved workmen, the provision applied to every person who was employed in the establishment, or in the part of the establishment, that was the subject of the dispute at the date the dispute arose, and also to any person who later became employed in that establishment or part. The Court then noted that Section 19 prescribed the duration for which settlements and awards remained effective, providing that, subject to the conditions set out in that section, an award continued to operate for a period of one year. The Court further observed that Chapter V of the Act dealt with strikes and lock-outs, Chapter V-A dealt with lay-off and retrenchment, Chapter VI dealt with penalties, and Chapter VII dealt with miscellaneous matters. The Court pointed out an important distinction in the definitions: although the term “any person” was used in the definition of “lock-out” in section 2(1) and in the definition of “strike” in section 2(q), the operative provisions in sections 22(2) and 23, which address “lock-out” and “strike,” referred only to “workmen.” This distinction highlighted that the substantive provisions applied specifically to workmen even though the broader definitions used a more general expression.

The Court then turned to Section 33, which barred an employer, while conciliation proceedings or tribunal proceedings were pending, from altering the conditions of service to the prejudice of the workmen concerned, and from dismissing or otherwise punishing any workman involved in the dispute. The Court observed that Section 33A employed the word “employee,” but that, when read together with Section 33, the term “employee” was intended to mean a workman. The Court further examined Section 36, which related to the representation of parties. Under that section, a workman who was a party to a dispute could be represented in any proceeding under the Act by (a) an officer of a registered trade union of which he was a member; (b) an officer of a federation of trade unions to which that trade union was affiliated; or (c) if the workman was not a member of any trade union, by an officer of any trade union connected with the industry or by any other workman employed in the same industry, provided that such representation was authorized as prescribed. Similarly, an employer who was a party could be represented by (a) an officer of an association of employers of which he was a member; (b) an officer of a federation of employers’ associations to which that association belonged; or (c) if the employer was not a member of any association, by an officer of any employers’ association connected with the industry or by any other employer engaged in that industry, again subject to prescribed authorization. The Court noted that subsection (3) of Section 36 expressly prohibited any party to a dispute from being represented by a legal practitioner in conciliation proceedings under the Act or in any proceedings before a court.

Sub-section (4) provides that when a dispute is before a Tribunal a party may be represented by a lawyer, but only if the other parties agree and the Tribunal grants permission. It is important to observe that the statute contains no specific rule allowing representation of any person other than a workman or an employer. This omission appears to stem from the second part of the definition clause, which limits the parties to an industrial dispute to the combinations employer-employer, employer-workman, or workman-workman. A careful reading of the key sections of the Act reveals that its main purposes are: first, to promote measures that secure and preserve friendly relations between employers and workmen; second, to investigate and settle industrial disputes among the recognised categories of parties, with the right of representation by a registered trade union, a federation of trade unions, an association of employers, or a federation of such associations; third, to prevent illegal strikes and lock-outs; fourth, to provide relief to workmen in cases of lay-off and retrenchment; and fifth, to facilitate collective bargaining. The legislation is essentially designed to regulate the relationship between employers and workmen, both now and in the future, and it distinguishes between “workmen” and managerial or supervisory staff, granting benefits only to the former. Consequently, the definition clause in section 2(k) must be read in the light of all these provisions. If the words “any person” were given their plain, unrestricted meaning, the definition would become so expansive that it would conflict not only with the purpose and other provisions of the Act but also with the internal consistency of the definition itself. Imagine that the phrase “any person” is interpreted normally; then workmen could lodge a dispute against an individual with whom they share no community of interest, such as a person employed in a different industry or a different establishment, even when their own employer has no power to affect the employment conditions of that person. To illustrate, suppose that workers in a particular industry decide to dispute with their employer the appointment or terms of employment of the District Magistrate or the District Judge of the district where the industry is located. Although the District Magistrate or District Judge certainly falls within the ordinary meaning of “any person” in the definition clause, a dispute concerning his or her employment or terms of employment is

The Court observed that a dispute concerning the employment or terms of employment of a District Magistrate or a District Judge cannot be classified as an industrial dispute for two principal reasons. First, such a dispute does not fall within the scope of the Industrial Disputes Act because it fails to satisfy the statutory definitions of “employer,” “industry,” and “workman,” and it is also inconsistent with other provisions of the Act. Second, there is no possible community of interest linking the District Magistrate or District Judge on one side with the disputants—namely the employer and the workmen—on the other side. The Court further referred to the opinion of Chief Justice Chagla in the case of Narendra Kumar Sen v. All India Industrial Disputes (Labour Appellate) Tribunal (1), where the Chief Justice warned that an unrestricted reading of the phrase “any person” would produce absurd consequences. He stated that if the phrase were read without any limitation or qualification, no territorial restriction could be imposed, thereby permitting workmen to raise disputes about the terms of employment of persons employed in the same industry as themselves, in similar or corresponding industries, across the whole country, and even worldwide. He described this possibility as “entirely untenable,” illustrating that such a broad construction would defeat the purpose of the legislation.

To demonstrate the practical difficulties of an overly wide interpretation, the Court considered a hypothetical situation in which workmen object to the salary or remuneration paid by the employer to a Manager or a Chief Medical Officer, without seeking any personal benefit. Suppose a dispute arises between the workmen and the employer on this objection. If the dispute were to be deemed covered by the definition clause and referred to an industrial tribunal, the only parties before the tribunal would be the employer and the workmen; the Manager or Chief Medical Officer could not be a party because they are not a “workman” under the Act and there is no direct dispute between them and the employer. An award rendered by the tribunal under clause (a) of section 18 would therefore bind only the employer and the workmen. The tribunal would lack authority to summon the Manager or Chief Medical Officer, since no dispute exists between them and the employer, and section 36 does not allow representation for a person who is not a party to the dispute. Consequently, any award could bind the employer while leaving the Manager or Chief Medical Officer unaffected, an outcome that runs counter to the objects of the Act and indicates that the legislature could not have intended to permit such absurd results.

In the judgment it was observed that an award, even though it would be binding upon the employer, would not bind the Manager or the Chief Medical Officer. The Court explained that the Act could not have imagined a situation of this sort, because such a result would not further any of the purposes of the Act but would actually be contrary to them. When these problems were brought to the attention of the learned counsel for the appellants, he admitted that it was necessary to place certain limits on the breadth of the expression “any person” that appears in the definition clause. He therefore proposed four separate limitations. The first limitation required that the dispute be a genuine and substantial dispute in which one of the parties is in a position to grant relief to the other; for example, where the dispute is between workmen and the employer, the employer must be able to provide the relief sought by the workmen. According to the counsel, this condition would exclude cases in which the workmen demand something that the employer is not legally capable of granting, and it would also exclude purely ideological differences or controversies. The second limitation stipulated that, when the dispute is raised by workmen, it must pertain to the specific establishment or to a part of the establishment where those workmen are employed, so that the definition clause remains consistent with section 18 of the Act. The third limitation required that the dispute relate to employment, non-employment, terms of employment or conditions of labour of a person, and that such a person be an employee who is either presently in service, has been discharged, or is a candidate for employment. The counsel clarified that the individual about whom the dispute arises need not be a “workman” as defined by the Act, but must fit the description of an employee, whether discharged, currently serving, or a prospective employee. The fourth limitation demanded that the workmen who raise the dispute have a direct connection to it, either because they are personally affected or because they are acting on behalf of another individual in the broader interest of labour welfare. The counsel further argued that even after applying these four limitations to the phrase “any person,” the present controversy still qualified as an industrial dispute within the meaning of section 2(k) of the Act. He supported this view by noting that (i) the employer was in a position to provide relief concerning the termination of Dr K P Banerjee’s service, (ii) Dr Banerjee was employed in the same tea garden establishment, (iii) the dispute concerned a discharged employee even though he was not a “workman,” and (iv) the workmen who raised the dispute were profoundly interested because Dr Banerjee was a member of their trade union and because his dismissal without a formal charge and without an opportunity to meet any charge was an issue of general concern to all workmen in that establishment.

The Court said it would now consider whether the restrictions suggested by the counsel for the appellants constitute the only proper limits to be applied to the definition clause, and in doing so it would also examine the true scope and effect of that clause as well as the correct tests to be applied. It observed that there was no real difficulty in accepting the first two restrictions because they are implicit in the definition clause itself. It is clear that a dispute must involve a genuine conflict between either two employers, an employer and a workman, or two workmen, and that such a conflict must be capable of settlement or adjudication by directing one of the parties to provide the necessary relief to the other. The Court further noted that the parties to the dispute must be directly or substantially interested in it; consequently, when workmen raise a dispute, the matter must relate to the establishment or part of the establishment in which they are employed. Regarding the third restriction, the Court agreed that the expression “any person” cannot be read as identical with “any workman” as defined in the Act, but it found that the limitation formulated by the appellants’ counsel was overly broad and not entirely correct. It recognised that if “any person” were to mean merely “any workman,” it would be difficult to understand why the Legislature chose the wider phrase instead of the narrower term. The Court pointed out that the definition clause uses the phrase “between employers and workmen or between workmen and workmen” in its second part, while the third part employs the phrase “any person,” indicating that the two expressions are not interchangeable. The reason for the use of “any person” in the third part was then explained. Before the amendments of 1956, the definition of “workman” in the Act already included a workman who was discharged during the dispute. That definition corresponded to section 2(j) of the old Trade Disputes Act of 1929, with the insertion of the words “including an apprentice” and the substitution of “industrial dispute” for “trade dispute.” It is noteworthy that under the 1929 Act, “workman” meant any person employed in any trade or industry to perform any skilled or unskilled manual or clerical work for hire or reward. Prior to the 1956 amendment, the definition of “workman” was further expanded to cover a person who was dismissed, discharged or retrenched in connection with, or as a consequence of, the dispute, or whose dismissal, discharge or retrenchment had led to the dispute.

The Court observed that a workman who had been dismissed before the dispute began could not be regarded as a “workman” within the meaning of the Act. If the words “any person” appearing in the third part of the definition clause were interpreted as identical to “any workman,” then, before the 1956 amendments, an industrial dispute could not involve a workman who had been discharged prior to the dispute, even though that discharge had actually triggered the conflict. The Court therefore concluded that the Legislature intentionally used the expression “any person” in that portion of the definition so as to make absolutely clear that the non-employment of a dismissed workman also fell within the scope of an industrial dispute. The Court noted that, prior to 1956, a wide disparity existed between the concepts of “workman” and “employee” under section 2(s). Every person who was a workman was undoubtedly an employee, but not every employee qualified as a workman. In particular, supervisory staff were excluded from the definition of workman. The 1956 amendments narrowed this gap by bringing into the definition certain members of the supervisory staff whose wages did not exceed five hundred rupees per mensem, as well as those individuals who otherwise would have been workmen but who had been dismissed or discharged before the dispute. The Court further explained that, should the gap be completely eliminated, the categories of workmen and employees would become synonymous, covering persons engaged in any skilled or unskilled manual, supervisory, technical or clerical work. However, until such full convergence occurs, a distinction remains between workmen and non-workmen, and that distinction is crucial to the matter presently before the Court.

The Court criticized Limitation no. (3) as framed by the counsel for the appellants, observing that it disregarded the essential distinction by equating “any person” with any employee, whether past, present or future, a view the Court found inconsistent with the remainder of the Act. The Court emphasized that the Act expressly gives a limited meaning to the term “workman” and that the majority of its provisions are intended to confer benefits on that specific class of individuals who generally meet the description of workmen. Consequently, the Court held that the phrase “any person” in the definition clause should be understood to refer to a person whose employment, non-employment, terms of employment or conditions of labour are of direct or substantial interest to the class of workmen, thereby creating a community of interest under the scheme of the Act. The reasoning was based not merely on the statutory distinction between workmen and non-workmen, but also on the principle that a genuine industrial dispute must involve parties who have a direct or substantial interest in the matter. The Court questioned whether workmen as a class could be said to have a direct or substantial interest in the employment, non-employment, terms of employment or conditions of labour of persons belonging to the supervisory staff, who, under the provisions of the Act, are classified as non-workmen and on whom the Act confers no benefit.

In this case, the Court examined whether a person who receives no benefit under the Act, who cannot by himself be a party to an industrial dispute, and for whose representation the Act makes no specific provision, could be treated as a party to such a dispute. The Court concluded that the answer must be negative. The limitation identified as (4) and put forward by counsel for the appellants was found to be too generally stated. The Court recognized that solidarity of labour or a general concern for the welfare of workers may, in some situations, provide the necessary link of direct or substantial interest in a dispute between an employer and workmen. Nevertheless, the principle of labour solidarity or general welfare must be anchored to the principle of community of interest; workmen may raise a dispute only with respect to those persons whose employment, non-employment, terms of employment or conditions of labour are of direct or substantial interest to them.

The Court referred to the test articulated by Chagla C. J. in Narendra Kumar Sen v. All India Industrial Disputes (Labour Appellate) Tribunal, observing that section 2(k) of the Act, when it mentions the employment or non-employment or the terms of employment or the conditions of labour of any person, can refer only to those persons for whom the workmen themselves have a direct and substantial interest. If the workmen lack such an interest, an industrial dispute cannot arise concerning that person. The Court arrived at the same conclusion from a slightly different angle. It noted that ordinarily only the aggrieved party can raise a dispute, but an industrial dispute is dealt with on a collective basis because it is now settled that an individual grievance not supported by other members of the same class does not constitute an industrial dispute within the meaning of section 2(k). The Court quoted Isaacs J. from the Australian case George Hudson Ltd. v. Australian Timber Workers’ Union, explaining that the nature of an industrial dispute, as opposed to an individual dispute, is to obtain new industrial conditions for the whole class of employees, not merely for the specific individuals then working or their employers, and that it is a battle by the claimants for the benefit of the class rather than for themselves alone.

Section 18 of the Act was then cited to support these observations. That provision makes any award binding not only on the parties to the dispute but also, where the party is an employer, on his heirs, successors or assigns, and where the party consists of workmen, on all persons employed in the establishment.

Section 18 of the Act also makes the award binding on any person who later becomes employed in the same establishment, thereby extending its effect to all subsequent employees. Consequently, when a dispute is characterised as collective, the party that raises the dispute must possess either a direct interest in the specific matter contested or a substantial interest such that the entire class to which the aggrieved party belongs is significantly affected. The essential connection lies in the shared interest of the whole class—whether it is a class of employers or a class of workmen—which creates the real nexus between the dispute and the parties involved. The Court found no insurmountable difficulty in applying this test in practice. For example, where the disputing party consists of the aggrieved workmen themselves and the matter in dispute directly concerns them or any of them, they unquestionably have a direct interest. Conversely, if the disputing party is also composed of workmen who support the cause of another individual whose employment status or lack thereof may adversely affect their own interests, those workmen possess a substantial interest in the subject matter. Under either circumstance, the dispute qualifies as an industrial dispute. Counsel for the appellants also referred to the definition of “trade dispute” in the Indian Trade Unions Act, 1926, which uses similar language but crucially defines “workmen” as “all persons employed in trade or industry whether or not in the employment of the employer with whom the trade dispute arises.” This broader definition expands the scope of a “trade dispute” under that Act. The Trade Unions Act serves different purposes, including permitting a registered trade union to spend its funds on conducting trade disputes on behalf of the union or its members. The Court held that the definition in the Trade Unions Act does not aid in construing the definition in the present Act, even though the same term “workman” appears, because the meaning of “workman” alters the reach of the definition, and the objectives, scheme, and purpose of the two statutes differ. Accordingly, the Court concluded that a detailed review of English, American, or Australian case law on comparable statutory language would not provide significant guidance for the specific issue at hand. Each statute must be interpreted according to its own terms, especially when the definition of “workman” varies from one enactment to another and evolves over time and across jurisdictions. The interpretation of section 2(k) of the Act has therefore been examined in various Indian decisions.

The Court observed that various decisions have examined the definition of “industrial dispute” from different perspectives. It noted that two recent judgments of this Court had addressed whether an individual grievance of a workman fell within the meaning of an industrial dispute. The first of those judgments was C. P. Transport Services Ltd. v. Raghunath (1), which dealt with the C. P. and Berar Industrial Disputes Settlement Act (No. XXIII of 1947). The second was Newspapers Ltd. v. State Industrial Tribunal, U. P. (2), which concerned the U. P. Industrial Disputes Act (No. XXVIII of 1947). Both cases interpreted section 2(k) of the respective statutes, although each case involved a different factual problem. The Court further referred to an earlier decision of the Federal Court in Western India Automobile Association v. The Industrial Tribunal, Bombay (3), where section 2(k) was examined in some detail. Counsel for the appellants relied heavily on certain observations made in that Federal Court judgment. The issue before the Federal Court, as recalled by the Court, was whether the term “industrial dispute” extended to a dispute concerning the reinstatement of certain dismissed workmen. The Federal Court held that reinstatement was connected with non-employment and therefore fell within the language of the definition. It appeared from the record that the Federal Court’s finding, which gave rise to the appeal, was that the workmen whose reinstatement was sought had been discharged during the course of the dispute and consequently qualified as “workmen” under the Act. Consequently, the present case did not present the same interpretative problem that had confronted the Federal Court judges. The Court then set out the specific observations upon which counsel for the appellants relied: “The question for determination is whether the … definition of the expression ‘industrial dispute’ given in the Act includes within its ambit a dispute in regard to reinstatement of dismissed employees…” (1) [1956] S.C.R. 956. (2) A.I.R. (1957) S.C. 532. (3) [1949] F.C.R. 321, 329-330, 346-347. The Court paraphrased the wording of the definition as follows: “any dispute which has connection with the workmen being in, or out of service or employment.” It explained that “non-employment” is simply the negative of “employment” and thus covers disputes involving workmen who are out of service with their employers. The Court emphasized that either a positive act or a negative act of an employer can give rise to employment or non-employment, and that the dispute may relate to an existing employment, a contemplated employment, an existing fact of non-employment, or a contemplated non-employment. To illustrate this principle, the Court provided four examples: (1) an employer has already hired a person and a trade union objects, saying “Please do not employ him”; such a conflict is a dispute concerning employment or its connection; (2) an employer notifies a union of his intention to employ two particular persons and the union refuses; this too is a dispute as to employment, arising from the employer’s desire; (3) an employer dismisses a man or declines to employ him, raising a dispute as to non-employment; and (4) an employer contemplates terminating a number of persons already in his employment, constituting a dispute as to contemplated non-employment. The Court concluded that “employment or non-employment” forms one class of industrial disputes, while the other two classes relate to terms of employment and conditions of labour. Actions such as failure to employ or refusal to employ fall within the “employment or non-employment” category, and reinstatement, being linked to non-employment, is therefore covered by the definition.

In this case, the Court explained that disputes concerning the act of employing certain persons or refusing to employ them fall within the definition of “employment or non-employment” under the Industrial Disputes Act. It gave four illustrative situations: first, where an employer has already hired a worker and a trade union objects to that employment, which creates a dispute about employment; second, where an employer notifies a union of his intention to employ two specific individuals and the union opposes the intention, again producing a dispute concerning employment; third, where an employer either dismisses a worker or refuses to hire him, which raises a dispute about non-employment; and fourth, where an employer plans to remove a number of people who are already employed, constituting a dispute about contemplated non-employment. The Court observed that “employment or non-employment” forms one class of industrial disputes, while the other two classes relate to the terms of employment and the conditions of labour. It further held that the employer’s failure or refusal to employ someone is an act covered by the terms “employment or non-employment,” and that reinstatement of a dismissed worker is connected with non-employment and therefore falls within the definition. The Court rejected the contention that reinstatement could not be an industrial dispute because the union representing the discharged employees would not be representing “workmen” as defined in the Act. It found no difficulty in the union raising the cause of the discharged workers, thereby maintaining that a dispute over the non-employment of any person can constitute an industrial dispute between the employer and the workmen under the Act. The Court also dismissed the argument that if the union represented only the employees who remained employed, there would be no dispute with the employer, noting that the definition does not require the parties to be solely discharged workmen. The phrase “any person” at the end of the definition, the Court said, provides a complete answer to that line of reasoning. While acknowledging that two of the earlier illustrations – numbers two and three – seemed to suggest that industrial disputes might involve persons who are not strictly “workmen,” the Court observed that the illustrations were intended to clarify a different issue and could not be treated as decisive on a matter not before it. The Court also referred to the decision in D. N. Banerji v. P. R. Mukherjee, which addressed whether “industrial dispute” included disputes between municipalities and their employees in activities analogous to a trade or business. More directly, the Court cited the Full Bench of the Labour Appellate Tribunal’s decisions reported in 1952 Labour Appeal Cases, page 198, where the same question arose for determination, as well as the deliberations of the All India Industrial Tribunal (Bank Disputes) and the majority opinion thereon.

In the case before the Full Bench of the Labour Appellate Tribunal, the members Messrs K C Sen and J N Majumdar formed the majority opinion. They held that a dispute between an employer and workmen could concern not only the employment or non-employment of the workmen themselves but also the terms of employment or conditions of labour of persons who were not classified as workmen. Accordingly, they interpreted the words “any person” appearing in the definition clause of the Act as having sufficient elasticity to include an officer, that is, a member of the supervisory staff. Their reasoning and conclusions were recorded in Chapter X of the Tribunal’s Report. By contrast, the minority view was expressed by Mr N Chandrasekhara Aiyar. He argued that the expression “any person” in the Act should be understood to refer only to individuals who belong to either the employer class or the workmen class, and that the case in which a party seeks relief must be suitably presented by the group or category to which that party belongs. He further noted that the authorities cited to support a broader reading of “any person” all involved workmen; those cases concerned dismissed or discharged workmen whose status as workmen was questioned, and the Tribunal rejected the argument that they fell outside the Act. In his view, there is no justification for treating those cases as authority for a wider proposition that a valid industrial dispute may be raised by workmen concerning the employment or non-employment of a person who never belonged to their class. Consequently, he concluded that the Act does not apply to cases involving non-workmen or officers, even if they might be so described. Both the majority and minority viewpoints, together with other decisions of High Courts and awards of Industrial Tribunals, were considered by the Full Bench. The Chairman of the Tribunal, Mr J N Majumdar, subsequently acknowledged that his earlier position was erroneous and, with the concurrence of all other members, expressed a revised opinion at page 210 of the Report. He stated that the expression “any person” must be interpreted in the context of “workmen” and cannot be given its widest possible meaning, as that would create inconsistency and conflict within the provisions of the Act. He emphasized that the phrase should be understood so that persons falling within its scope can, at some stage, satisfy the definition of workman contained in the Act. It is also necessary to note that an earlier contrary view had been adopted by the Calcutta High Court in Birla Brothers Ltd. v. Modak, by Justice Banerjee in The Dalhousie Jute Co. Ltd. v. S N Modak, and by the Industrial Tribunal, Madras, in East India Industries (Madras) Ltd. v. Their Workmen. These earlier decisions and other High Court judgments were part of the material considered by the Full Bench in forming its final interpretation.

The learned judges supported the view they expressed by recalling two practical considerations. First, workmen ordinarily do not raise a dispute in which they have no direct or substantial interest. Second, the Government ordinarily does not refer a matter unless the dispute is real or substantial. The Court held that these considerations should not lead to a purely grammatical or etymological construction of the phrase “any person” that appears in the definition clause. Instead, the Court adopted an approach, quoted from Maxwell, that requires the meaning to be sought in the subject-matter, the occasion on which the words are used, and the object that the statute seeks to achieve. The Court recognised that anyone might be a potential workman and that the notion of a “potential workman” introduces some indefiniteness and uncertainty. It also agreed that the phrase “any person” is not co-extensive with the class of workmen, whether actual or potential. Nevertheless, the Court identified the decisive test as one of community of interest: the individual about whom the dispute is raised must be one whose employment, non-employment, terms of employment or conditions of labour (as the case may be) are of direct or substantial concern to the parties to the dispute. Whether such direct or substantial interest exists in any particular case, the Court noted, must be determined from the facts and circumstances of that case. The Court also referred to two later decisions that had come to its notice. In Prahlad Rai Oil Mills v. State of Uttar Pradesh, Justice Bhargava had held that the expression “any person” in the definition clause did not denote a workman. In Narendra Kumar Sen v. All India Industrial Disputes (Labour Appellate) Tribunal, the decision of Chief Justice Chagla and Justice Shah, from which the Court had already quoted extracts, was also cited.

An examination of the authorities mentioned above revealed a clear divergence of opinion. One line of thought interpreted “any person” according to its ordinary meaning, while the other line interpreted the phrase in light of the context, referring to the subject of the enactment and the legislative purpose. The Court, for the reasons already set out, found the contextual approach to be the correct one. In summary, after considering the scheme and objects of the Act and its other provisions, the Court concluded that the expression “any person” in section 2(k) of the Act must be read subject to the limitations and qualifications that arise from its context. The two essential limitations identified were, first, that the dispute must be a genuine dispute between the parties to the dispute, as indicated in the first two parts of the definition clause, so that it can be settled or adjudicated with one party providing the necessary relief to the other; and second, that the person about whom the dispute is raised must

The Court explained that the expression “any person” in section 2(k) must be understood in the context of the Act’s purpose. For a dispute to be a real dispute, the parties must have a direct or substantial interest in the employment, non-employment, terms of employment, or conditions of labour that are the subject of the dispute. If such an interest is absent, the dispute cannot be regarded as a genuine dispute between the parties. When workmen raise a dispute against their employer, the individual whose employment or conditions are in question need not be strictly a “workman” within the meaning of the Act; rather, the person must be one whose employment, non-employment, terms of employment or conditions of labour are directly or substantially relevant to the workmen as a class. The Court cited authorities, namely (1) A.I.R. (1955) NUC (Allahabad) 2664 and (2) (1953) 55 Bo-L.R. 125, to support this interpretation.

Applying this principle to the present case, the Court noted that Dr K. P. Banerjee was not a workman. He belonged to the medical or technical staff, a category distinct from workmen. Consequently, the appellants had neither a direct nor a substantial interest in his employment or non-employment. Even assuming that he was a member of the same trade union as the workmen, the dispute concerning his termination did not satisfy the tests laid down by the Court and therefore did not constitute an industrial dispute within the meaning of section 2(k) of the Act. As a result, the appeal was dismissed and no order for costs was made. The factual background was that on 1 November 1950 Dr Banerjee was appointed Assistant Medical Officer of Dimakuchi Tea Estate, whose management is the respondent. On 21 April 1951 the respondent terminated his service effective the following day and offered one month’s salary in lieu of notice, which Dr Banerjee accepted before leaving the estate. The tea-estate workmen subsequently raised a dispute over his dismissal. On 23 December 1953 the Government of Assam issued an order of reference for adjudication of that dispute by an Industrial Tribunal under section 10 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The order identified the dispute as arising between (1) the workmen of Dimakuchi Tea Estate, represented by the Secretary of the Assam Chah Karmachari Sangha, I.N.T.U.C. Office, Dibrugarh, and (2) the management of Dimakuchi Tea Estate, represented by its agents, Messrs Williamson Magor and Company Limited, Calcutta. The order further stated that it was expedient for the Government of Assam to refer the dispute to a Tribunal constituted under section 7 of the Act, and accordingly, under the powers conferred by clause (e) of sub-section (1) of section 10, as amended, the Governor of Assam referred the dispute to Sri Uma Kanta Gohain, Additional District and Sessions Judge (retired), who was appointed to constitute the Tribunal.

The Tribunal was constituted by a retired District and Sessions Judge who had been appointed under the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act. The reference order listed two questions for consideration: first, whether the management of Dimakuchi Tea Estate was justified in dismissing Dr. K. P. Banerjee, A. M. O.; and second, if the dismissal was not justified, whether Dr. Banerjee was entitled to reinstatement or any other relief in substitution. After examining the matter, the Tribunal concluded that Dr. Banerjee did not fall within the definition of “workman” as provided in the Act. Consequently, the Tribunal held that the dispute presented did not qualify as an industrial dispute and therefore lay beyond its jurisdiction to adjudicate. The workmen, dissatisfied with this conclusion, filed an appeal before the Labour Appellate Tribunal. That Tribunal dismissed the appeal on the same ground, reiterating that Dr. Banerjee was not a “workman” within the statutory definition and that the controversy, being connected with his employment or non-employment, could not be characterized as an industrial dispute; as a result, the Industrial Tribunal lacked jurisdiction over the matter. From the decision of the Labour Appellate Tribunal, the present appeal by the workmen of the tea estate emerged, having been granted leave by this Court under Article 136 of the Constitution. In granting leave, this Court circumscribed the issue to the question of whether a dispute involving a person who is not a “workman” can be captured within the definition of “industrial dispute” contained in section 2(k) of the Act. That question alone constitutes the matter before us. Section 2(k) reads: “Industrial dispute means any dispute or difference between employers and employers or between employers and workmen, or between workmen and workmen, which is connected with the employment or non-employment or the terms of employment or with the conditions of labour, of any person.” The controversy in the present case arose between the employer, the respondent, and its workmen, the appellants, and concerned the employment or non-employment of Dr. Banerjee, who was employed by the same employer but did not satisfy the statutory definition of a workman. The crux of the issue stems from the inclusion of the words “any person” in the definition. Those words are broad and general and, according to ordinary meaning, embrace individuals who are not classified as workmen. If that ordinary meaning is applied, the dispute concerning Dr. Banerjee’s dismissal would fall within section 2(k) and thereby qualify as an industrial dispute. This proposition is not contested. Unless there exist compelling reasons to the contrary, the ordinary meaning must be applied to those words. Earlier authorities, such as Birla Brothers Ltd. v. Modak (1) and Western India Automobile Association v. Industrial Tribunal of Bombay (2), held that the phrase “any person” was intended to be wide and inclusive, not limited solely to workmen as defined by the Act. In The Dalhousie Jute Co. Ltd. v. S. N. Modak (3), Justice Banerjee observed that “any person” means whatever individual is chosen, and there is no reason to restrict the meaning of the word ‘person.’ This same view was expressed in East India Industries (Madras) Ltd. v. Their Workmen (4), an Industrial Tribunal decision, which supports the interpretation that the words “any person” should not be confined. The respondent points out that it does not argue that “any person” should be read as referring only to a workman within the Act; rather, it suggests that the phrase should encompass all persons of the workman class, including discharged workmen. It is noted that the first two cited cases dealt with disputes involving discharged workmen and did not decide that “any person” included all persons. Nevertheless, the discussion proceeds from this factual and legal backdrop.

In the judgment, the Court observed that the view expressed in a prior decision, which held that there was no reason to limit the meaning of the word “person,” was reaffirmed by the Industrial Tribunal in East India Industries (Madras) Ltd. v. Their Workmen. The Court noted that this observation provided some support for the proposition that the expression “any person” should not be subject to any limitation. The respondent, however, did not argue that the words “any person” were to be understood solely as referring to a “workman” as defined in the Act. Instead, the respondent contended that those words should encompass all individuals belonging to the class of workmen, thereby including dismissed workmen. The Court pointed out that the first two cases cited by the respondent – Birla Brothers Ltd. v. Modak and Western India Automobile Association v. Industrial Tribunal of Bombay – dealt with disputes concerning dismissed workmen, but the decisions in those cases did not expressly decide that the phrase “any person” covered everyone. The Court explained that although those cases involved dismissed workmen, it did not accept the reasoning that limited the phrase to that category. In Birla Brothers the Court, through Justice Sen, had observed that it could not be argued that workmen dismissed before the enactment of the Act were not “persons.” Likewise, in the Western India Automobile Association case, the Court rejected the contention that reinstatement of discharged workmen could not be an industrial dispute because the union representing them did not consist of “workmen” as defined in the Industrial Disputes Act. The Court held that the argument was unsound, affirmed that a union could represent discharged workmen and the dispute would still qualify as an industrial dispute between employer and workmen, and emphasized that the phrase “any person” in the definition of industrial dispute answered the appellant’s argument.

The Court further observed that the remaining two cited authorities – The Dalhousie Jute Co. Ltd. case and East India Industries (Madras) Ltd. case – were not concerned with disputes involving dismissed workmen. In The Dalhousie Jute Co. case the dispute related to individuals seeking employment as workmen, while in the East India Industries case the dispute concerned the dismissal of a supervisory staff member, who was an employee of the same employer but not a workman. The Court noted that none of the cited decisions had considered the specific arguments now advanced by the parties, and therefore, those cases were set aside for the purpose of deciding the present question. The Court then turned to the question of whether any convincing reasons existed for refusing to give the words “any person” their ordinary meaning. Several reasons had been suggested, and the Court indicated that it would examine them later. The Court reiterated that the respondent’s contention was that the words were not confined to a workman but applied only to persons belonging to the workman class. The Court expressed its lack of agreement with that view, observing that “workman” is a term defined by the Act and that, outside that definition, it is impossible to determine who qualifies as a workman. Consequently, the notion of a “workman class” would be meaningless unless it referred to all persons falling within the statutory definition.

The Court observed that the employer in the cited authorities was not a workman. It further remarked that none of those earlier decisions had addressed the arguments now being advanced, and consequently those judgments had not considered the issues raised in the present dispute. The Court therefore set those cases aside for the purpose of deciding the question that had arisen before it. The Court then asked whether there were any good reasons for refusing to give the words “any persons” their ordinary meaning. It noted that several reasons had been suggested and that it would examine those arguments later. The Court turned to the proposal that the meaning of the words should be limited. It reiterated that the contention put forward was that the words were not intended to cover every person but only a person belonging to the “workman class”. The Court stated that it could not accept this view. It explained that “workman” is a term defined in the Industrial Disputes Act, and that outside that definition it is impossible to determine who is a workman and who is not. Consequently, the expression “workman class” would be meaningless unless it referred to all persons who qualify as workmen under the Act. If that were so, the phrase “any person” would in effect mean only a workman, but the Court observed that this was not the intention. Moreover, the Court argued that had the legislature intended to limit the phrase to workmen, it would have used the words “any workman” rather than “any person”. The Court also pointed out that if the intention were to exclude dismissed workmen, a dispute concerning the dismissal of a workman would cease to be an industrial dispute because a dismissed workman would not, under the 1953 definition, be a workman. Such a result would contradict the very concept of industrial dispute law. The Court therefore concluded that the words “any person” could not be confined solely to persons of the workman class, and that no other restriction was suggested. It further considered the argument that the words should include “workmen dismissed as well as in employment as also those who in future become workmen”. The Court expressed difficulty with this view, noting that it would exclude a person who seeks employment as a workman until he is actually employed. Under such an interpretation, a dispute raised by existing workmen concerning the appointment of new workmen—such as a demand that only candidates willing to join their union be appointed—would not be regarded as an industrial dispute, a consequence the Court found to be contrary to the established principles of industrial dispute law.

In this case, the Court expressed that it could not grasp the meaning of a dispute that involves a person who, at the moment the dispute arises, is not a workman, but who might become a workman at some later date. The Court asked when such a person would be regarded as a workman, and noted that it could find no answer to that question. It further examined whether the determination of whether a controversy qualifies as an industrial dispute might have to depend on future events, because there is no way of knowing whether the individual about whom the dispute is framed will later acquire the status of a workman. The Court observed that if the person does become a workman, then no dispute concerning him can be said to relate to a point in time before he attained that status; conversely, if he never becomes a workman, then he cannot be described as someone who will become a workman in the future. The Court also referred to the argument that the term “any person” was employed in place of the word “workman” with the intention of covering persons who had been dismissed before the dispute arose and who were not included within the definition of workmen as it existed in the 1953 Act. The Court questioned why, if that was the legislative purpose, the statute did not simply use the expression “workmen and dismissed workmen”, noting that nothing prevented the legislature from doing so. It further pointed out that the definition of “workman” had been amended in 1956 to expressly include workmen who were discharged because of an industrial dispute or whose discharge gave rise to such a dispute. Consequently, under the amended definition, persons who were dismissed before the dispute began are now captured within the meaning of workman. Nevertheless, the expression “any person” remained untouched in section 2(k) and was not replaced by the word “workman”. The Court interpreted this persistence as indicating that Parliament did not intend to limit the phrase “any person” solely to workmen who were currently employed or who had been dismissed.

The Court concluded that the unchanged wording demonstrated that Parliament did not aim to confine “any person” only to workmen in employment or those who had been dismissed. The Court noted, however, that another submission argued that the phrase was retained in order to embrace not only workmen in employment and dismissed workmen, but also persons who might become workmen in the future, and that this interpretation was supported by section 18 of the Act. While the Court said it would consider section 18 later, it observed at this stage that the latter argument weakened the position set out in the preceding paragraph. The Court reasoned that if the term “any person” was used to bring future workmen within its sweep, the same provision could not have been employed to exclude dismissed workmen who were not defined as workmen under the 1953 Act. In the Court’s view, an argument that the phrase was intended to cover future workmen could not simultaneously be used to claim that it was inserted in place of “workman” for the purpose of including certain dismissed workmen who were outside the earlier definition. The Court therefore found the contention that the term was meant to include future workmen unpersuasive, and it signaled that it would now turn to an analysis of section 18.

The provision in question is set out as follows: “A settlement arrived at in the course of conciliation proceedings under this Act or an award which has become enforceable shall be binding on – (a) all parties to the industrial dispute; (b) all other parties summoned to appear in the proceedings as parties to the dispute, unless the Board or Tribunal, as the case may be, records the opinion that they were so summoned without proper cause; (c) where a party referred to in clause (a) or clause (b) is an employer, his heirs, successors or assigns in respect of the establishment to which the dispute relates; (d) where a party referred to in clause (a) or clause (b) is composed of workmen, all persons who were employed in the establishment or part of the establishment, as the case may be, to which the dispute relates on the date of the dispute and all persons who subsequently become employed in that establishment or part.” The Court observed that this language does not clarify who is intended to be covered by the expression “any person” in the earlier provision. The argument that clause (d), by making an award binding on persons who later become workmen in the same establishment, suggests that such future employees should be treated identically to present and dismissed workmen was rejected. The Court explained that the purpose of clause (d) is straightforward: the Act seeks to resolve a dispute between an employer and his workmen through a settlement or award, and it also specifies the period during which that settlement or award remains effective. The rationale behind clause (d) is that anyone who takes up employment as a workman in the concerned establishment while the award or settlement is in force must be bound by it. Without this rule, an award would lose its practical effect because newly hired workmen could again raise the same dispute. The Court noted that industrial experience shows that workmen constitute a largely mobile workforce, with frequent turnover and regular recruitment needed to replace departing employees and augment the workforce. To address this reality and ensure that an award or settlement has lasting effect, clause (d) was enacted. Its intention was not to place present workmen and future recruits on an identical footing for every purpose of the Act. By the same reasoning, clause (a) shows that the legislature intended to give the heirs, successors or assigns of an employer the same position for all purposes of the Act as the employer himself, a purpose that would be absurd if interpreted otherwise. Consequently, the Court concluded that the reference to “any person” does not extend to persons who may become workmen in the future, and that section 18(d) should be read strictly as giving binding effect only to those who are employed as workmen at the relevant time, not to all possible future persons.

The Court noted that it would be absurd to interpret the phrase “any person” in section 2(k) as automatically extending to a future employee of the employer. It observed that section 18(d) deals with a person who may become employed in the future, and although the provision does not expressly state “employed as a workman,” the Court assumed that this is the intended meaning. The Court expressed confusion about the meaning of saying that such a person falls within the words “any person” in section 2(k). It asked what point in time should be considered for this inclusion. If the moment considered is after the individual has become employed, then he is a workman and clearly falls within the expression “any person.” The Court questioned whether the expression should also apply to the same individual before he attains employment, and found this reasoning difficult to follow. It pointed out that, conceivably, any human being could in the future be employed as a workman because there is nothing inherent in a person’s nature that distinguishes a workman from any other person. In that sense the words “any person” would encompass everyone, but the Court held that such an interpretation would defeat the purpose of the argument based on section 18(d). The Court further asked whether only those future workers who apply for jobs should be covered, noting that section 18(d) makes no reference to such applicants and therefore cannot be used to show that the legislature intended to bring them within the phrase “any person.” Consequently, the Court could not accept the argument that section 18(d) demonstrates that future workmen were meant to be included in the term “any person.” It also remarked that, even assuming section 18(d) was intended to include a person who will become a workman, the provision offers no reason to exclude other persons from the same phrase, and section 18 itself provides no guidance on this point. The Court then turned to the reasons presented for limiting the generality of the words “any person.” First, it observed that certain sections of the Act use the expression “any person” while specifically referring to workmen; therefore, in section 2(k) the phrase should be understood to mean persons belonging to the workman class. Second, the Court noted that the overall scheme and purpose of the Act, especially its objective to benefit workmen, support confining the phrase “any person” to people of the workman class. Third, it observed that the word “dispute” in section 2(k) itself implies that the individual raising the dispute must have an interest in the dispute, which necessarily relates to employment, non-employment, terms of employment, or conditions of labour, and thus the individual must be a member of the workman class. Accordingly, the Court concluded that the use of “any person” in those particular sections is intended to refer only to workmen.

In this case, the Court noted that the question was why the intention that the word “person” should be understood to mean a workman must be inferred. It observed that such an intention could only be drawn from the surrounding context, and therefore set out to examine the relevant statutory provisions. Section 2(1) of the Act defines a lock-out as “the closing of a place of employment, or the suspension of work, or the refusal by the employer to continue to employ any number of persons employed by him.” Section 2(q) defines a strike as “a cessation of work by a body of persons employed in any industry acting in combination, or a concerted refusal, or a refusal under a common understanding, of any number of persons who are or have been so employed to continue to work or to accept employment.” The statutory scheme deals with lock-outs and strikes in sections 22, 23 and 24. Section 22(2) provides that no employer carrying on any public utility service shall lock-out any of his workmen except under the conditions specified in that section. Section 23 states that no employer of workmen employed in any industrial establishment shall declare a lock-out during the periods mentioned therein. Section 24 declares that a strike or a lock-out is illegal if it is commenced or declared in contravention of sections 22 or 23. The Court explained that the definitions of “lock-out” and “strike” in section 2 are intended for the purposes of sections 22, 23 and 24, and that other sections where lock-outs and strikes are mentioned do not affect the point under consideration. Consequently, the lock-outs and strikes governed by sections 22(2), 23 and 24 are those effected by, and directed against, workmen. From this the Court inferred that in sections 2(1) and 2(q) the term “person” is to be read as meaning a workman. It further observed that section 22(1) speaks of “no person employed in a public utility service shall go on strike except on certain conditions,” and that the Act contains no indication that the word “person” in that provision is limited to workmen alone.

Proceeding to the matter specifically raised, the Court asked whether any provision of the Act expressly shows that the words “any person” in section 2(k) were intended to refer only to members of the workman class. The Court stated that it had examined the statute and found no such provision, nor had any counsel pointed out any authority to that effect. Accordingly, the Court concluded that the fact that the word “persons” denotes workmen in sections 2(1) and 2(q) does not compel the same restricted interpretation in section 2(k). The Court further observed that the situation is similar with respect to section 33A, where the word “employee” is read as meaning a workman because of section 33; this issue does not require separate discussion. The Court added, however, that if…

The Court observed that it could not be said that, because the term “person” is interpreted as referring only to a workman in certain other sections of the Act, the same interpretation must automatically apply to the expression “any person” in section 2(k). The learned counsel for the respondent did not put forward the contention that the term “person” in section 2, sub-sections (1) and (q), and the term “employee” in section 33A, should be read to include not only a workman presently employed but also a discharged workman or a person who may become a workman in the future. The Court noted that such an argument had not been advanced, and that it would have been difficult to sustain. Turning then to the second group of reasons, the Court examined arguments based on the object and scheme of the Act. It was submitted that the legislation draws a distinction between employees who are workmen and all other employees, that its primary focus is on workmen, and that this view was endorsed in United Commercial Bank Ltd. v. Kedar Nath Gupta (1). The Court accepted that the Act may not be principally concerned with employees other than workmen, but rejected the notion that this circumstance required the words “any person” in section 2(k) to be limited to a person belonging to the workman class.

The Court further explained that, although the definition in section 2(k) is directed at workmen, the phrase “any person” could still be understood because the dispute in question would involve a workman as a party. It declined to accept the argument that the Act would cease to be intended for workmen, or that its focus would shift away from workmen, if a dispute concerning the dismissal of a non-workman were treated as an industrial dispute, even when workmen were also parties to that dispute. The Court also rejected the suggestion that the distinction between workmen and other employees would disappear under such a scenario. While acknowledging a subsidiary argument that a dispute might not genuinely involve workmen if they were not interested in it, the Court reserved consideration of that point for later discussion. The Court also referred to the reasoning in United Commercial Bank Ltd. v. Kedar Nath Gupta (1), which held that the main purpose of the Act is to regulate the relationship between employers and workmen and to secure the benefits provided by the Act for the latter.

In this portion of the judgment the Court explained that requiring workmen to be interested in a dispute is essentially the same requirement as stating that the dispute must affect them, because if the workmen have no interest, no advantage can flow to them from any settlement of the controversy. The Court noted that this point would be examined in more detail at a later stage of the reasoning. The Court also considered the proposition that the legislation is intended primarily for the benefit of workmen. Under that view, if a disagreement involving a person who is not a workman were classified as an industrial dispute capable of being resolved under the Act, and if the arbitral award were rendered in favour of the workmen who raised the claim, the result would be that a person outside the class of workmen would obtain a benefit that the statute was not meant to confer. Consequently, some authorities have argued that an industrial dispute cannot be one that concerns a non-workman. The Court, however, observed that any benefit that might accrue to the non-workman in such a scenario would be merely incidental, while the workmen themselves would also receive a benefit at the same time. To reject the claim on the basis that the non-workman would gain would, in the Court’s view, deprive the workmen of the benefit to which they are entitled, and no reason exists to justify such deprivation.

The Court indicated that it would later explain precisely how the workmen would be benefited, and it referenced a previous decision reported in 1952 1 L.L.J. 782, which held that where the workmen are not interested in the dispute, the Government would have no cause to refer the matter, and consequently no advantage would arise for a person who is not a workman. The Court further expressed disagreement with the notion that the Act is designed solely to confer benefits upon workmen. While acknowledging that all parties accept the Act’s purpose as preserving industrial peace, the Court emphasized that the legislation may indeed afford some advantages to workmen but, simultaneously, it restricts their right to strike and imposes a disadvantage on them.

The Court then turned to a dissenting note attached to the majority award of the All India Industrial Tribunal (Bank Disputes) dated 31 July 1950. That dissent was authored by Mr Chandra Sekhar Aiyer, who later became a Judge of this Court. In his note, Mr Aiyer interpreted the expression “any person” in section 2(k) of the Act to include anyone belonging either to the employer class or to the workmen class, and to cover cases in which the individual could be said to be adequately represented by the group or category to which he belongs. The Court reiterated the difficulty it had already expressed in accepting the limited meaning that “any person” refers only to members of the workmen class. Although the Court would later address the reasoning upon which Mr Aiyer relied, it preliminarily observed that the phrase “any person” cannot be applied to a member of the employer class, because an industrial dispute must relate to the employment, non-employment, terms of employment, or conditions of labour of the person concerned, and it is inconceivable to envisage such a connection in relation to a person acting solely in the capacity of an employer.

Mr Aiyar first observed that the expression “any person” should be limited by the requirement that the person must have a connection with the particular establishment where the dispute has arisen. He explained that it could not be said that workmen in Bank A could lodge a valid industrial dispute against their own employer merely because an employee of Bank B had been treated unfairly by that bank’s employer. Even if that were assumed, it would not follow that an industrial dispute must concern only a person belonging to the work-man class. A person who has a relationship with an establishment need not necessarily be a work-man; for example, an officer employed in the same establishment is as much connected with the establishment as a work-man is. Consequently, even if one accepts the limitation suggested by Mr Aiyar, nothing in that limitation would prevent an industrial dispute concerning such an officer from arising.

The Court observed that the real question was not whether the individual about whom an industrial dispute may arise must be employed in the very establishment where the dispute is raised, but whether that individual must belong to the class traditionally described as “work-men.” The Court noted that the issue of whether the person must be employed in the same establishment had not arisen in the present case and therefore could not assist in deciding the question that was before it. Accordingly, the Court did not feel bound to express any opinion on that preliminary point.

Mr Aiyar then referred to a hypothetical situation in which the work-men of a bank raised a dispute against the bank concerning an employee who was not a work-man, such as an officer who had been dismissed. He assumed that there was no direct dispute between the bank and the officer. In his view, if that controversy were treated as an industrial dispute and were the subject of an award by an Industrial Tribunal, the award would not be binding on the officer because he had no direct interest in the dispute. Mr Aiyar argued that it would be absurd to require the bank to implement an award that did not affect the officer, and therefore, in his opinion, such a controversy could not be characterised as an industrial dispute.

The Court noted that whether an award would bind the officer would depend on whether the officer could be brought in as a party to the dispute under section 18(b). The Court said that it was unnecessary to explore that question at the present stage. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the award was not binding on the officer, the Court asked why the bank should not still be obliged to give effect to the award to the extent that it was within the bank’s power to do so. If the controversy were truly an industrial dispute, the award would be binding on the bank and the bank would have to give effect to it. The argument, therefore, that the controversy was not an industrial dispute because the award would not bind the officer was rejected as invalid.

The Court began by observing that it could not accept the proposition that an award would fail to bind the officer about whose employment the dispute arose. To illustrate the point, the Court described a hypothetical sequence of dismissals. First, an employer dismissed five workmen, none of whom lodged any grievance. Three months later the same employer dismissed a further twenty-five workmen, and again neither the newly dismissed men nor the employees who remained raised any dispute. Two months after that second dismissal the employer dismissed fifty additional workmen, who likewise left without complaint. At this stage the remaining employees became aware of the pattern of dismissals, concluded that the employer was following a uniform policy, and collectively raised a dispute concerning all of the dismissals. The dispute was subsequently referred to a tribunal for adjudication, and the tribunal issued an award in favour of the workmen. The Court assumed that, although all the dismissed workmen could in principle have been joined as parties to the adjudication proceedings, for various reasons they were not. Consequently, the award would not be binding on those who had been dismissed, nor on the earlier groups of dismissed workers, and they would fall outside the coverage of section 18. The Court then asked whether this lack of binding effect on certain workers should lead to the conclusion that the matter was not an industrial dispute. The Court rejected that view, holding that the dispute clearly satisfied the definition of an industrial dispute even if the words “any person” in the definition were interpreted restrictively to refer only to persons belonging to the work-man class. Accordingly, the Court held that the test for determining whether a question is an industrial dispute does not depend on whether the award binds the individual whose employment is affected. The Court found no justification in Mr Aiyar’s dissent for limiting the ordinary meaning of “any person” in section 2(k). Moreover, the Court noted that if disputes involving foremen who are not classified as workmen were excluded from the conception of industrial disputes, the purpose of the Act would be frustrated. Thus, the Court could not accept the argument that the non-binding nature of an award on a particular individual negated the existence of an industrial dispute.

The Court proceeded to consider another line of argument that was presented from a different perspective. It was alleged that workmen might raise an industrial dispute against their employer concerning the salary of a manager who was not a workman, and that a tribunal could issue an award directing the employer to reduce the manager’s salary. Under that scenario, the employer would be bound by the award, while the manager would not be. The argument further suggested that if the employer had a contract with the manager to pay a higher salary for a specified period, the employer would be forced by the award to breach that contract and would consequently be liable to the manager for damages. The Court rejected this contention, holding that the employer’s performance of the award would not constitute a breach of contract. Instead, the Court explained that the award, being binding on the employer under the Act, would render the employer’s contractual obligation to pay the higher salary unlawful after the award was made, thereby invoking section 56 of the Contract Act and rendering the contract void. Consequently, the employer would not incur liability for damages by complying with the award. The Court concluded that the reasoning advanced to deny the status of an industrial dispute in such circumstances was untenable, and that the dispute in question should indeed be treated as an industrial dispute.

It was argued that the legislation could not have been intended to create a situation in which an employer would become liable for damages, and therefore the dispute in question could not be classified as an industrial dispute. The Court did not accept the premise that the employer would incur liability for damages. Because the award was binding on the employer under the Act, performance of the employer’s contract with the manager would become unlawful after the award and consequently void pursuant to section 56 of the Contract Act. The Court observed that the employer would not, by implementing the award, be breaching his contract, and consequently he would not be liable for damages. The Court further held that recognizing the contemplated dispute as an industrial dispute would not produce the absurd result suggested by the earlier argument. Therefore, the reason offered for excluding the dispute from the definition of an industrial dispute failed to persuade the Court.

The Court then considered another hypothetical scenario to illustrate its point. Suppose two employers, identified as A and B, were engaged in a dispute concerning the wage rate that B paid to his workmen, with A contending that B’s wage levels were excessively high. The dispute was referred to a Tribunal, which issued an award directing B to reduce the wages of his workmen. Assume that the workmen were not parties to the dispute and that they were not made parties, even though the law permitted such inclusion. Under section 18, the award would not be binding on the workmen themselves. Nonetheless, the Court declared that the dispute clearly satisfied the definition of an industrial dispute, even if the term “any person” were interpreted to refer solely to workmen. This illustrated that the words “any person” could also encompass individuals on whom the award would not be directly binding.

The Court added that, although it was not necessary to resolve this issue for the case at hand, it appeared that when a dispute involved a person—whether a workman or not—who was not a party to the dispute, that person could be properly made a party to the proceedings under section 18(b). The Court found no provision in that section that prohibited such a step. If the individual were made a party, the Court noted that the resulting decision, regardless of its direction, would be most satisfactory to all concerned. According to this view, arguments asserting that the phrase “any person” could apply only to those on whom the award would be binding would lose force, because once the individual became a party, the award would indeed be binding on that person. Conversely, this interpretation indicated that the legislators intended the phrase “any person” to include those who were not initially parties to the dispute and therefore not part of the workman class. The Court also mentioned an argument based on section 33, which asserted that the provision’s protection of workmen during conciliation or tribunal proceedings implied that “any person” in section 2(k) should be limited to workmen, but the Court did not adopt that argument.

Section 33 of the Industrial Disputes Act states that during the pendency of an industrial dispute the employer may not alter the conditions of service of the workmen who are concerned in the dispute, nor may the employer dismiss or otherwise punish those workmen without the permission of the Board or Tribunal. The petitioner argued that this provision demonstrates that the legislature intended the protection to apply only to workmen, and therefore the expression “any person” in section 2(k) should be interpreted as referring exclusively to workmen. The Court rejected that contention. It observed that Section 33 extends protection only to workmen who are parties to the dispute; a person about whom a dispute arises may or may not be a party. The purpose of the provision is clear: if workmen could be punished while the dispute is pending, no workman would be willing to raise a dispute or to participate in the adjudicatory proceedings contemplated by the Act. Such punitive action would inevitably generate a new dispute, thereby frustrating the very objective of the Act, which is to settle industrial disputes through settlement or adjudication. Consequently, Section 33 safeguards workmen who are parties to the dispute and does not address the status of the individual about whom the dispute originates. Accordingly, the section cannot illuminate the meaning of the words “any person” in section 2(k). The Court illustrated this by a hypothetical situation: if a workman were dismissed and a dispute subsequently arose between the employer and the remaining workmen concerning that dismissal, the matter would still constitute an industrial dispute. However, the dismissed workman would not receive protection under Section 33 because he has already been dismissed.

The discussion then turned to Section 36, which deals with the representation of parties to a dispute in proceedings that arise under the Act. Sub-section (1) of Section 36 prescribes how a workman who is a party shall be represented, while sub-section (2) prescribes the manner of representation for an employer who is also a party. The provision makes no mention of representation for any other person. The petitioner contended that this omission indicates that the phrase “any person” in section 2(k) must refer solely to a workman, implying that the term covers only employees—present, former, or future—who qualify as workmen under the definition of a party to an industrial dispute. The Court could not accept this reasoning. It held that Section 36 merely provides for the representation of parties—workmen and employers—because only parties require representation in the proceedings, and under the definition a party to an industrial dispute must be either an employer or a workman. The provision does not concern the individual about whom the dispute arises. If that individual is also a party, Section 36 supplies a mechanism for his representation as a party, not as a person merely concerned by the dispute. Thus, Section 36 offers no assistance in determining the scope of the expression “any person” in section 2(k).

In this case the Court observed that a person may be involved in an industrial dispute without necessarily being a party to it, even if that person is a workman. The Court noted that the Act provides for the representation of workmen, in addition to an employer, in proceedings that arise out of an industrial dispute, but that this provision does not demonstrate that an industrial dispute must always relate to a workman. Accordingly, the Court held that section 36 does not help to determine the meaning of the expression “any person”. The Court then turned to the final argument that sought to limit the ordinary meaning of “any person”. It was submitted that the word “dispute” in the definition requires the person raising the dispute to have an interest in it, and because the dispute must concern employment, non-employment, terms of employment or conditions of labour, the person must therefore be a workman. The Court expressed that it could not accept this line of reasoning.

The Court further examined the claim that this view had been expressed by a Bench of the Bombay High Court consisting of Chief Justice Chagla and Justice Shah in the case of Narendra Kumar Sen v. The All India Industrial Disputes (Labour Appellate) Tribunal. The Court indicated difficulty in accepting that the cited decision supported the proposition. In the cited case, certain workmen had lodged a dispute against their employer seeking fixation of pay scales and bonuses not only for themselves but also for foremen and divisional heads who were not classified as workmen. The Government referred the dispute to an Industrial Tribunal for adjudication. The Tribunal declined to consider the portion of the dispute that concerned the pay and bonus of the non-workmen, holding that this portion did not constitute an industrial dispute. The aggrieved workmen then applied to the High Court for a writ directing the Tribunal to decide the claims of the non-workmen. The High Court held that the matter was not an industrial dispute and refused to grant the writ. Chief Justice Chagla, speaking for the Court, observed that a controversy connected with employment, non-employment, terms of employment or conditions of labour is an industrial controversy, but he stressed that it must also be a dispute. He further explained that not every difference of opinion between workmen and employers qualifies as a dispute within the meaning of section 2(k). He gave examples of ideological differences, sympathetic considerations, or concerns about labour conditions outside one’s own country, and held that such factors alone do not give a workman the right to raise an industrial dispute. The dispute contemplated by section 2(k) must be one in which the workman is directly and substantially interested and which the employer is positioned to remedy.

In this case the Court reproduced the observations of the learned Chief Justice, who explained that a controversy must satisfy certain requirements before it can be characterised as an industrial dispute under section 2(k). He stated that merely having ideological differences with an employer, feeling sympathy for workers in another industry, or being deeply concerned about labour conditions in another country does not, by itself, create an industrial dispute within the meaning of the statute. According to him, the dispute contemplated by section 2(k) must be one in which the workman is directly and substantially interested, and it must be a grievance that the workman himself feels and that the employer is in a position to remedy. Both elements must be present: the grievance must belong to the workman personally, and the employer must have the authority to address it. He further observed that workmen are principally interested in matters that relate to their own employment, their own terms of employment, and their own conditions of labour, and that only on those grounds are they entitled to raise an industrial dispute and have it referred to a Tribunal under section 10.

The Court expressed some difficulty in accepting every proposition put forward by the learned Chief Justice, but it considered the logical consequences of his reasoning. Assuming his description was correct, the Court questioned whether the requirement that workmen be interested necessarily means that the dispute must concern only the workmen themselves. The Court noted that the Chief Justice had not made such a sweeping statement. In the case before him, the dispute involved persons who were not workmen, and he found that the workmen were not interested, leading him to hold that the matter was not an industrial dispute. However, this finding did not imply that an industrial dispute could only relate to workmen. The Court observed that the commentary on page 131 of the report did not support the view that an industrial dispute must be confined to workmen. It is conceivable, the Court added, that a dispute concerning the employment of a non-workman could nevertheless affect the conditions of labour or terms of employment of the workmen themselves, and examples of such situations would be given later.

Even if an industrial dispute must be one in which workmen have an interest, the Court argued that this does not restrict the dispute to matters involving workmen alone, nor does it limit the phrase “any person” in section 2(k) to mean only workmen. The Court found that the respondent’s argument – that “any person” should be interpreted to cover all members of the workman class, past, present and future – was not supported by the Chief Justice’s judgment. The Chief Justice had emphasized that workmen are primarily, directly and substantially interested only in their own employment, terms of employment and conditions of labour. Consequently, relying on the Bombay High Court’s decision would place the respondent in contradiction. The Court concluded that it was difficult to accept that the interest of workmen is a condition of the existence of an industrial dispute, since the Act itself does not expressly require such a condition. Although the word “dispute” implies that a person raising it is interested, the Court held that this implication does not make the interest of workmen a statutory condition for a matter to be classified as an industrial dispute.

The Court observed that the passage concerning past or future workmen did not limit the interest of workmen to merely their own employment, terms of employment, or conditions of labour. It noted that the opposite view was expressed, stating that workmen were interested primarily – and, as the Court understood the term “primarily,” directly and substantially – only in matters affecting their individual employment. The Court warned that relying on the judgment of the Bombay High Court would place the respondent in direct conflict with this interpretation. It expressed great difficulty with the proposition that the existence of an industrial dispute must be conditioned on the workmen’s interest in it. The Court pointed out that the Act itself did not impose such a requirement, even though the definition of “dispute” seemed to imply it. While it was undeniable that a person would not raise a dispute unless he was interested, the Court held that the Act, intended for ordinary persons, could only assume that workmen would not raise a dispute without interest, but this assumption could not be read as a mandatory condition for an industrial dispute under the Act. To treat it as such, the Court warned, would create serious problems and could even frustrate the purpose of the legislation. The Court promised to demonstrate this point further. It also indicated that, even if one assumed that an industrial dispute required the workmen’s interest, the dispute before the Court – concerning the dismissal of Dr Banerjee – qualified as an industrial dispute because the appellant workmen were directly and substantially interested in it. The Court then turned to the question of what kind of interest workmen must possess. It found the notion of such an interest impossible to define. Since it could not be defined, the Court argued, it could not be made a condition of an industrial dispute, for otherwise the very concept of an industrial dispute would remain unknowable. The Court explained that, in legal parlance, “interest” ordinarily refers to proprietary interest or interest in other recognized civil rights. Anything beyond those well-known categories became vague and nearly impossible to define. To restrict the required workmen’s interest to those familiar kinds would, in the Court’s view, render the Act essentially ineffective. The Court reminded that the Act does not deal with interest in its ordinary sense. Rather, the Act addresses a newer concept – the relationship between employer and employee, or, more broadly, between capital and labour – a relationship that has been changing rapidly. The numerous and radical amendments to the Act since its enactment testified to the fast-evolving nature of this concept. Bearing all these considerations in mind, the Court concluded that it was almost impossible to define, with any usefulness, an interest that would serve the purpose of the Act. It warned that attempting to do so would introduce undue rigidity, which would be harmful rather than helpful. The Court also expressed doubt that labeling the interest as “direct and substantial” added any clarity to its definition.

The Court observed that attempting to define the interest required by the Act would create a rigidity that would be harmful rather than beneficial. It further held that describing such an interest as merely direct and substantial would not aid in giving the concept any useful meaning. To demonstrate the difficulty, the Court presented a hypothetical situation involving the dismissal of a single workman and the reaction of his colleagues. The Court noted that even if the phrase “any person” were interpreted narrowly to cover only persons belonging to the workman class, as the respondent argued, the dispute would still fall clearly within the definition of an industrial dispute. Consequently, the Court affirmed that there was no doubt that the disagreement over the dismissal qualified as an industrial dispute under the statute. The Court then asked what specific interest the disputing workmen possessed in seeking reinstatement of the dismissed employee, assuming that an interest was a prerequisite for the dispute. It observed that the reinstatement would not improve the financial condition of the complainant workmen nor would it enhance any material benefit to them in the ordinary sense of the term. The only interest the Court could identify was the solidarity of labour, meaning that the workers would support one another in protecting a colleague from dismissal. The Court explained that a strike would disrupt the industrial peace that the Act seeks to preserve and therefore it would be contrary to the purpose of the legislation. For this reason, the Act classifies the disagreement as an industrial dispute and provides mechanisms of conciliation and adjudication to maintain peace while preventing unilateral action. The Court further stated that if the solidarity of labour is to be treated as a direct and substantial interest for the purpose of an industrial dispute, then the law is embracing a novel concept of interest not previously recognized. The Court proceeded to consider another hypothetical, where the employer hires certain workers at a low wage rate and the remaining workers contest this by demanding higher wages for the low-paid employees. It observed that even under the most restrictive interpretation of “any person,” which limits the term to workmen as defined in the Act, the dispute concerns the terms of employment. Accordingly, the Court held that the matter must be regarded as an industrial dispute without doubt and therefore falls squarely within the ambit of the legislation. The Court then asked what specific interest the complainant workmen have in this wage-increase dispute in the context of the requirement that an industrial dispute involve a demonstrable interest. It noted that the increased wages for the low-paid workers would not directly improve the financial condition of the disputing workmen nor serve any benefit they ordinarily enjoy. Nevertheless, the Court recognized that the interest lies in preventing the employer from employing low-paid labour, thereby protecting the wage levels of the contesting workers. The Court concluded that this protective concern constitutes the sufficient interest required to classify the controversy as an industrial dispute.

The Court observed that the increase in wages which the workmen were demanding would not, in any way, improve the financial condition of the workmen who were actually raising the dispute, nor would it serve any of their interests as they are ordinarily understood. Nevertheless, the Court noted that such an increase would help the disputing workmen by ensuring that their own wages were not diminished, because it would prevent the employer from being able to employ any very low-paid worker at all. Apart from this consideration, the Court could conceive of no other interest that the workmen who were disputing the matter might have in the controversy. Accordingly, if it is essential that the workmen who are raising a dispute must possess an interest in that dispute, the interest described above must suffice, because, as the Court had already indicated, the matter in question is unquestionably an industrial dispute. The Court further stated that if this limited interest is sufficient to constitute an industrial dispute, it could not understand why the workmen would lack a sufficient interest in a dispute in which they seek the removal of a foreman who is particularly rude and brutal in his behaviour and ask that a more humane foreman be appointed. That situation, the Court explained, plainly involves a personal and immediate interest for the workmen who are raising the dispute, unlike the earlier example where the interest consisted only of preventing some future event that might never occur. Such a personal interest is far nearer to the ordinary kinds of interest traditionally recognised, as opposed to an interest in solidarity of labour or in averting a speculative future harm, both of which the Court had earlier accepted as adequate to sustain an industrial dispute. The Court then considered a hypothetical scenario in which the foreman was himself a workman; in that case the dispute would undoubtedly fall within the definition of an industrial dispute. The Court further imagined the opposite situation, where the foreman was not a workman, and asked whether the dispute would then cease to be an industrial dispute, or whether the workmen’s interest would be any less or different because the foreman whose dismissal was being demanded was not a workman. The Court found it impossible to answer in the negative. Consequently, if the presence of an interest is the decisive test, the imagined dispute must be regarded as an industrial dispute whether or not the foreman concerned was a workman. Finally, the Court examined a further hypothetical in which the dispute did not arise from a demand for the foreman’s dismissal but rather from a demand that a foreman who was particularly kind and sympathetic not be dismissed, because the workmen were content to work under him. In that circumstance, the Court held that the workmen’s interest in the dispute would be the same as their interest in demanding the foreman’s dismissal: they would be seeking his reinstatement in order to ensure that their work proceeded smoothly and that they remained satisfied while performing their duties. The Court concluded that such a dispute also qualifies as an industrial dispute, and that, as in the previous examples, the fact that the foreman was not a workman does not affect the determination of the dispute’s industrial character.

In the present case the Court observed that the fact that the foreman was not a workman did not affect the character of the dispute. Applying the same reasoning, the Court held that the dispute arising from the dismissal of Dr Banerjee also qualified as an industrial dispute because the workmen possessed a personal and immediate interest in having a doctor they preferred to attend to them. The Court noted that the workmen were well-aware of Dr Banerjee’s devotion to duty and his good conduct, which had made him a popular figure among them. The Court expressly separated two unrelated questions: first, whether the workmen’s demand for reinstatement of Dr Banerjee was justified, and second, whether a tribunal would ultimately uphold that demand. These issues, the Court said, were distinct from the core question of whether the workmen’s interest was a necessary element of an industrial dispute. The Court found no reason to conclude that the appellants lacked any interest in the matter of Dr Banerjee’s dismissal. Consequently, even if one were to require that workmen have an interest for a dispute to be classified as industrial, the present dispute involved a direct and substantial interest on the part of the appellants, and therefore satisfied that requirement. Nonetheless, the Court refrained from making the workmen’s interest a condition for the existence of an industrial dispute, observing that the Industrial Disputes Act does not impose such a condition. The Court warned that insisting on a mandatory interest would defeat the purpose of the legislation, because it would be impossible to draw a line around the existence of an interest. Moreover, the Court explained that the statute does not oblige the Government to refer every dispute raised by workmen for adjudication, particularly if the workmen were not genuinely concerned about the issue. As an illustration, the Court suggested a hypothetical situation where workmen demand a higher salary for a manager; it would be up to the Government, after evaluating the circumstances, to decide whether to refer that dispute for adjudication, and there was no statutory duty to do so.

The Court further emphasized that the intention of the Act could be discerned from its object, which was to promote the investigation and settlement of industrial disputes. Referring to the judgment of the Federal Court in the Western India Automobile Association case, the Court quoted the passage from pages 331-332, which explained that the Act’s preamble declares it to be legislation aimed at the investigation and settlement of industrial disputes. Under the Act, any dispute that meets the statutory definition may be reported to the Government, which may then take steps it considers appropriate to foster conciliation or settlement. The Government has the authority to refer the dispute either to an Industrial Court for advisory purposes or to an Industrial Tribunal for adjudication. The Court pointed out that the legislation replaces the possibility of free bargaining between the parties with a binding award issued by an impartial tribunal. The Court concluded by observing that many industrial disputes originate from a series of demands made by workmen, and that the Act’s scheme is designed to handle such demands in a systematic and equitable manner.

In this case, the Court observed that when workmen present demands that the employer finds unacceptable, it often leads to the dismissal of the leaders and subsequently to a strike. The Court stated that any mechanism intended for reconciliation and settlement of industrial disputes cannot be regarded as effective unless it includes a means of dealing with employees who are dismissed under such circumstances, because those dismissed workers are usually the first victims in an industrial dispute. The Court further explained that if reinstatement of such persons cannot be achieved through conciliation or adjudication, it becomes very difficult, if not impossible, to restore industrial peace, which is the purpose of the legislation. The Court noted that this understanding of the object of the Act is accepted by all, including the decisions in Narendra Kumar Sen’s case and United Commercial Bank case. Referring to Narendra Kumar Sen’s case, the Court quoted Chief Justice Chagla’s remark that the Industrial Disputes Act was enacted to bring about industrial peace in the country, to avoid conflicts between employers and labourers, to prevent strikes and lock-outs, and to ensure that production does not suffer because of continual labour troubles.

Consequently, when deciding whether to refer a dispute to an adjudicating body, the Court held that the Government must be guided by the question of whether the dispute is likely to disturb industrial peace or hamper production. The Court found no difficulty in concluding that the Government would recognize that the dispute raised by the workmen—who were demanding a higher salary for the manager—did not pose a risk of disturbing peace or affecting production. Because the workmen were ordinary persons, the Court reasoned that they were unlikely to endure the hardships of a strike to enforce such a demand. The Court therefore said that the primary question of whether the workmen have a sufficient interest in the dispute must be left to the Government’s own judgment. If the Government believes that the workmen lack such an interest that could lead to a disturbance of industrial peace, the Government may, at its discretion, decide not to refer the dispute for adjudication by a tribunal. The Court emphasized that the Government must be free to make this determination in the national interest and that the Court should not impose rigid standards of interest that would interfere with the Government’s discretion, for doing so could defeat the purpose of the Act. If the Government feels that a dispute might disrupt industrial peace, the policy of the Act requires the Government to exercise its powers under the Act to prevent such disruption, as noted in the cited authorities (1) (1953) 55 Bom. L.R. I25 and (2) [1952] L.L.J. 782. The Court illustrated this by assuming a scenario where workmen raise a dispute without having, in the Court’s view, sufficient interest to make it an industrial dispute; in such a case, the Court would hold that the dispute is not an industrial dispute.

The Court explained that if a dispute were held not to be an industrial dispute, the Government would be prevented from using the procedures provided in the Act to settle it. The Court then considered a situation in which the workmen went on strike, causing a disturbance of industrial peace and a hindrance to production. In such a circumstance, the purpose of the Act would have been frustrated because the dispute had earlier been described as one in which the workmen had no interest, and consequently as a dispute that could not be adjusted under the Act’s provisions. The Court rejected the proposition that the workmen would simply refrain from striking in such a case; if they did not strike, the Government would have no reason to refer the matter for adjudication under the Act, and the Court would not need to determine whether the workmen were interested in the dispute or whether the dispute qualified as an industrial dispute. Accordingly, the Court held that it is unnecessary to define an industrial dispute as one that exists only when the workmen themselves are interested. Imposing such a test would render the question justiciable and would create a rigidity in the application of the Act that is incompatible with the rapidly evolving concepts the legislation seeks to address, thereby defeating the Act’s objective. The Court observed that it is reasonable to assume that ordinary workmen would not raise a dispute or threaten industrial peace unless they were genuinely interested in the matter. Nevertheless, the Court clarified that it did not intend to be understood as saying that the question of whether a dispute is an industrial dispute is never justiciable by courts, nor that a dispute becomes an industrial dispute solely because the Government declares it so; such a broader issue did not arise in the present case. The Court emphasized that the requirement of workmen’s interest is not a condition for a dispute to be classified as an industrial dispute, and that a court is not called upon to decide any question of interest when it is asked to determine whether a dispute falls within the meaning of an industrial dispute. The Court noted that the issue of interest is only of practical relevance to the Government, assisting it in deciding whether a dispute should be referred for adjudication. Finally, the Court considered the argument that permitting workmen to raise a dispute concerning a person who is not a workman could allow that person to have his grievance with the employer adjudicated through the workmen, illustrating the point with a hypothetical scenario in which a manager, unable to obtain a salary increase from his employer, might incite the workmen to raise a dispute demanding the manager’s salary increase, thereby treating the manager-employer conflict as an industrial dispute.

The Court noted that if a dispute were adjudicated and the award were granted in favour of the workmen, the consequent result would be that the Act might be used to settle a disagreement between a manager and his employer, a dispute that the Act was not intended to cover. Accordingly, it was argued that the expression “any person” in section 2(k) could not be read to include an employee who does not qualify as a workman. The Court disagreed with that submission. First, the Court held that while interpreting a statute, it is not permissible to presume that persons will employ its provisions dishonestly. The statutory language must retain its ordinary meaning; otherwise there is a risk that the Act could be applied to purposes for which it was not designed. The legislation itself contains a safeguard against such misuse, because it gives the Government complete discretion to refuse to refer a dispute that falls outside the intended scope. The Court therefore found it unnecessary to bow to a remote apprehension that the Act might be deployed for unintended purposes by construing the language in a manner that departs from its plain meaning. Finally, the Court observed that adopting such a restrictive construction would require excluding many cases, including the present one and earlier decisions such as Chose, which are clearly industrial disputes, merely to avoid a speculative possibility of misuse. The Court concluded that such an approach would cause greater harm than benefit. Consequently, the Court arrived at the conclusion that a dispute involving a person who is not a workman may nevertheless constitute an industrial dispute within section 2(k). As there was no indication that the dispute before the Tribunal was for any purpose other than an industrial dispute, the Court held that the Industrial Tribunal possessed full jurisdiction to adjudicate the matter and should have done so. Accordingly, the appeal was allowed and the case was remitted to the Industrial Tribunal for adjudication in accordance with law. In the order of the Court, it was recorded that, in view of the majority opinion, the appeal was dismissed without any order as to costs, and the appeal was consequently dismissed.