The Bombay Union of Journalists and Others vs The Hindu, Bombay and Another

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

Court: supreme-court

Case Number: Civil Appeal No. 22 of 1961

Decision Date: 27 September 1961

Coram: J.C. Shah, K.N. Wanchoo

In this case the Supreme Court of India heard an appeal titled The Bombay Union of Journalists and Others versus The Hindu, Bombay and Another, decided on 27 September 1961. The opinion was authored by Justice J.C. Shah, with Justice K.N. Wanchoo also sitting on the bench. The petitioner was the Bombay Union of Journalists and others, and the respondents were The Hindu, Bombay and another party. The judgment was delivered on the same date, 27 September 1961. The citation for the decision is reported in 1963 AIR 318 and 1962 SCR (3) 893, with later citations appearing in subsequent reports. The matter concerned the question of whether an individual industrial dispute could be transformed into an industrial dispute under section 12(5) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The factual background was that the first respondent, The Hindu, Bombay, a newspaper establishment, terminated the employment of the third appellant, who served as its correspondent, and refused to reinstate him after he requested reinstatement. The third appellant’s grievance was taken up and supported by the Bombay Union of Journalists, a trade union whose membership was open to all persons whose livelihood depended on journalism. No union representing the employees of The Hindu, Bombay, or a group of its workmen, offered support to the appellant. The Government of Bombay referred the dispute to an Industrial Tribunal for adjudication under section 12(5) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The Tribunal held that the reference was unsuitable because the dispute was merely an individual dispute between The Hindu, Bombay, and the third appellant, and because the appellant had not been backed by a substantial number of employees of the newspaper. On appeal, the Court held that the Industrial Disputes Act did not apply to an individual dispute unless a body of workmen, or a considerable portion of them, joined the individual in common cause. The Court relied on the earlier decisions of Central Provinces Transport Services Ltd. v. Raghunath Gopal Patwardhan (1956) SCR 956 and The Newspapers Ltd. v. State Industrial Tribunal, U.P. (1957) SCR 754, and followed the principle that support from members of a union who are not workmen of the employer against whom the dispute is raised cannot convert an individual dispute into an industrial dispute. The Court further explained that persons who support a workman must be directly and substantially interested in the dispute; those who are not employees of the same employer cannot be regarded as so interested, as affirmed in Workmen of Dimakuchi Tea Estate v. Management of Dimakuchi Tea Estate (1958) SCR 1156. The test, according to the Court, was whether at the date of the reference the dispute had been taken up and supported by the union of workmen of the employer against whom the dispute was raised, or by an appreciable number of such workmen. The Court also noted that the labour court’s jurisdiction would not be altered by any later withdrawal of support by the workmen who had originally sponsored the cause.

The Court explained that once an individual dispute had been referred, later support by a union of interested workmen could not transform that dispute into an industrial dispute. Consequently, such subsequent support could not create jurisdiction for the tribunal. The observations in The Hindu v. The Working Journalist of the Hindu in Madras (1959) II L.L.J. 348 and Working Journalist of the Hindu v. The Hindu (1961) 1 L.L.J. 288 were cited in support of this principle.

This appeal, filed under special leave, challenged an award dated 3 October 1959 issued by the Industrial Tribunal, Bombay, in Reference (I.T.) No. 33 of 1959. The appeal was titled Civil Appeal No. 22 of 1961 and was heard on 27 September 1961. Counsel for the appellants included Ramaswamy, E. Udavarathnam and S. S. Shukla, while the respondent, identified as No. 1, was represented by R. Ramamurthy Iyer and R. Gopalkrishnan. The judgment was delivered by Justice Shah. The Tribunal had dismissed the reference on the ground that it lacked jurisdiction to decide a dispute that had been submitted by the Government of Bombay.

Salivateeswaran, the third appellant, asserted that he was a full‑time employee of the first respondent, The Hindu. On 15 February 1956, he sent a letter from Bombay to the Managing Editor of The Hindu, a daily newspaper based in Madras, stating that he intended to travel to Europe on 1 March 1956. The following day, the Assistant Editor replied, acknowledging that Salivateeswaran was not a full‑time employee of The Hindu, and informing him that the newspaper could not permit frequent interruptions in the performance of his duties. The Assistant Editor warned that, if Salivateeswaran proceeded with his travel plan, the newspaper would have to relieve him of his correspondent duties effective 1 March 1956.

Salivateeswaran persisted in his travel plans and wrote to the management on 29 February 1956, confirming his intention to go abroad. In response, the management notified him that, as of 1 March 1956, he would no longer be considered a correspondent of The Hindu. After completing his European tour, Salivateeswaran returned to India and, on 5 July 1956, demanded reinstatement. He further requested that the period of his absence abroad be treated as leave. The management declined his request.

Consequently, Salivateeswaran filed an application under section 17 of the Bombay Working Journalist (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 45 of 1955, claiming a total of Rs. 1,57,172‑8‑0 on various heads. He alleged that his termination was wrongful and amounted to retrenchment. The management contested his claim, asserting that he was not their employee and that the Authority created under the 1955 Act lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate disputed questions of fact. The Authority rejected the management’s contention, holding that it was competent to determine the disputed questions of fact that arose before it.

Following the Authority’s decision, the management of The Hindu filed a petition under Article 32 of the Constitution, seeking a direction to set aside the Authority’s order. The petition argued that section 17 of the 1955 Act did not empower the Authority to function as a forum for adjudicating disputed claims.

In this case the Court affirmed, relying on the decision in Kasturi and Sons (Private) Ltd. v. Salivateeswaran, that the petition presented by the management of “The Hindu” could not be sustained, yet it dismissed the petition on the ground that the order issued by the Authority did not infringe any fundamental right of the management. Consequently, acting on the Court’s view, the Authority declined to continue with the application because the factual disputes identified were required to be resolved in the petition that was before it. The newspaper “The Hindu” had maintained a Bombay office since 1937. At the material time the newspaper employed, apart from Salivateeswaran, only nine other persons: seven staff members who performed administrative duties and two journalists identified as Venkateswaran and Tiwari. Both Salivateeswaran and Venkateswaran were members of the Bombay Union of Journalists, whereas the other journalist, Tiwari, was not a union member. The Bombay Union of Journalists is a trade union whose membership is open to all individuals whose livelihood depends on practising journalism, a category that embraces press photographers, artists, cartoonists and freelance writers. Although the union does not comprise solely employees of “The Hindu”, it represents all persons in Bombay who depend on journalism for their income. By a resolution dated 16 August 1956, the Bombay Union of Journalists resolved to support Salivateeswaran’s claim filed under section 17 of the Bombay Working Journalists (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955. Between 9 April 1958 and 15 April 1958, four letters were circulated by 225 union members – excluding Venkateswaran – notifying the union of Salivateeswaran’s termination and stating that the matter raised questions of principle that required proper adjudication under section 10(1)(c) of the Industrial Disputes Act. The union treated these letters as a requisition to convene a meeting and placed them before the adjourned General Body meeting held on 17 April 1958, presided over by D.V. Nathan. At that meeting the body resolved to support Salivateeswaran in his dispute with “The Hindu”, Bombay. Subsequently, on 25 April 1958, the union wrote to the proprietor of “The Hindu”, Bombay, seeking a settlement of the dispute raised by Salivateeswaran. After the newspaper refused to accede to the request, the union approached the Conciliation Officer appointed under the Industrial Disputes Act to intervene. The Conciliation Officer took up the matter, conducted several meetings with the parties, and, in a report dated 5 December 1958, recorded his failure to achieve conciliation. Finally, on 9 February 1959, the State of Bombay referred the dispute between “The Hindu”, Bombay, and Salivateeswaran to a tribunal for adjudication under section 12(5) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

The order issued by the Government of Bombay, whose effect is before this Court for determination, is reproduced as follows: “No. AJN 7458‑H—Whereas the Government of Bombay has examined the report submitted by the Conciliation Officer under sub‑section (4) of section 12 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (XIV of 1947) concerning the dispute between The Hindu, Bombay and the workman (working journalists) employed by it over the demands specified in the Schedule annexed hereto; and whereas, having considered that report, the Government of Bombay is satisfied that there exists a case for referring the dispute to a Tribunal; now, therefore, in exercise of the powers conferred by sub‑section (5) of section 12 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (XIV of 1947), read with section 3 of the Working Journalists (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955 (XIV of 1955), the Government of Bombay hereby refers the said dispute for adjudication to the Tribunal consisting of Shri M. H. Meher, constituted under Government Notification, Labour and Social Welfare Department, No. IDA‑1157(b) dated 12 March 1957.” The Schedule sets out Salivateeswaran’s claim for a total amount of Rs 1,52,172‑8‑0 under various heads. The Hindu, Bombay challenged the State Government’s competence to make the reference on three grounds. First, it contended that there was no industrial establishment of The Hindu in Bombay and consequently the Industrial Tribunal lacked jurisdiction. Second, it argued that Salivateeswaran was not a working journalist within the meaning of the Act, was not employed as such by The Hindu, and that no employer‑employee relationship existed between them, thereby depriving the Tribunal of jurisdiction. Third, it asserted that there was no dispute between the working journalists of The Hindu, Bombay and the management, and that the grievance raised by Salivateeswaran was a purely individual dispute not supported by an appreciable number of employees. The Tribunal dismissed the first and second arguments but upheld the third, holding that the matter was a solitary dispute between Salivateeswaran and The Hindu, Bombay, lacking support from a substantial number of employees, and therefore concluded that the Government of Bombay had no jurisdiction to refer the dispute to the Tribunal. The terms of reference issued by the Government of Bombay under section 12(2) indicate that the controversy was essentially between The Hindu, Bombay and the single appellant concerning his individual claim, in which the other employees of The Hindu, Bombay had no direct interest. In Central Provinces Transport Services Ltd. v. Raghunath Gopal Patwardhan, this Court examined three possible views on whether a dispute raised by an individual workman may be characterised as an industrial dispute within the meaning of section 2(k) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, and observed that the prevailing judicial opinion favours the view that a dispute between an employer and a single employee does not, by itself, constitute an industrial dispute, unless it is taken up by a union or a group of workmen for a reasoned cause.

In this case the Court observed that the prevailing judicial opinion corresponded to the third of the three views previously discussed, namely that a dispute between an employer and a single employee was not automatically an industrial dispute, but it could become one if the dispute was taken up by a trade union or by a sufficient number of workmen and there existed a considerable reason for such involvement. Although the wording of section 2(k) of the Industrial Disputes Act was sufficiently wide to include a dispute between an employer and an individual employee, the overall scheme of the Act appeared to contemplate that its adjudicatory machinery should be invoked only for disputes that concerned the rights of workmen as a class. Accordingly, a dispute that affected merely an individual right of a workman was not intended to fall within the ambit of adjudication under the Act unless it had been taken up by the Union or by a number of workmen, as noted in the 1956 report cited at (1) [S.C.R. 956]. This perspective was reaffirmed in The Newspapers Ltd. v. The State Industrial Tribunal, U.P. Consequently, the Court held that the Industrial Disputes Act did not apply to an individual dispute as distinguished from a dispute involving a group of workmen, unless the workmen as a body or a substantial section of them joined in common cause with the individual workman.

The dispute in the present proceedings was, on its face, an individual dispute. For it to acquire the status of an industrial dispute it was necessary to demonstrate that it had been taken up by the Union of employees of “The Hindu”, Bombay, or by an appreciable number of those employees. Counsel for the appellant argued that the dispute was supported by the Bombay Union of Journalists, of which the appellant was a member, and further asserted that it was also backed by Venkateswaran and Tiwari, the only other employees in the establishment. The appellant additionally contended that, after the matter was referred to the Tribunal, the Indian Federation of Working Journalists had taken it up, thereby converting it into an industrial dispute. By its constitution the Bombay Union of Journalists is a union of all journalists in Bombay, not a union limited to employees of a single employer. The Court concluded that support by such a union would not transform the individual grievance of one of its members into an industrial dispute.

The specific dispute between “The Hindu”, Bombay and the appellant concerned an alleged wrongful termination of employment. The Court held that the dispute could acquire the character of an industrial dispute only if it could be proved that, before being referred to the Tribunal, it had been supported by the Union of the employees of “The Hindu”, Bombay, or by an appreciable number of those employees. This requirement was consistent with the principle articulated in Workmen of Dimakuchi Tea Estate v. Management of Dimakuchi Tea Estate, where the Court explained that the two tests for an industrial dispute under sub‑section (k) of section 2 of the Industrial Disputes Act must be satisfied.

The Court explained that, to be an industrial dispute, a matter must satisfy two conditions. First, the dispute must be a genuine disagreement that can be settled by granting relief from one party to the other. Second, the individual about whom the dispute is raised must be someone whose employment, non‑employment, terms of service or labour conditions are of direct or substantial interest to the parties, and this must be determined by the facts of each case. In the present matter, certain employees attempted to raise a grievance concerning a person who was not a workman. Union members who were not employed by the respondent employer sought, by supporting the grievance, to transform what was initially an individual dispute into an industrial dispute. The Court held that the principle requiring supporters of a workman’s cause to have a direct and substantial interest also applies here. Persons who are not employees of the same employer cannot be considered sufficiently interested to convert an individual grievance into an industrial dispute merely by lending their support. Consequently, the mere endorsement of the grievance by the Bombay Union of Journalists could not assist Salivateeswaran in converting his claim into an industrial dispute.

The appellants’ counsel argued that Venkateswaran, being a member of the Bombay Union of Journalists, gave the Union’s support the character of Venkateswaran’s own espousal of the cause, and that because only three journalists were employed by The Hindu, Bombay, the Union’s backing rendered the dispute industrial in nature, citing the decision reported at (1) [1958] S.C.R. 1156. The Court noted that the Executive Committee of the Bombay Union of Journalists had, in August 1956, resolved to support Salivateeswaran’s application under Act 45 of 1955. The Union subsequently appeared before the authority appointed by the Government of Bombay and also before this Court in a petition under Article 32 of the Constitution. However, the Court found that such support could not aid Salivateeswaran’s claim. The proceedings contemplated under section 17 of the Working Journalists (Conditions of Service) Act ceased when the authority declined to proceed with the petition. Moreover, there was no evidence that Venkateswaran participated in any of those proceedings. Venkateswaran and Tiwari filed affidavits before the Tribunal stating that the dispute between Salivateeswaran and the management of The Hindu was purely a personal matter of Salivateeswaran, that they had not allied themselves with him, and that they had never supported his claim in any manner. Venkateswaran also affirmed that he had not authorized the Bombay Union of Journalists to take up Salivateeswaran’s matter or to raise a dispute on his behalf.

It was stated that at no time did the Bombay Union of Journalists receive authority to take up the matter of Salivateeswaran or to raise the dispute on his behalf. The affidavits submitted by Venkateswaran and Tiwari were nearly identical in wording, leading to a reasonable inference that the two employees acted in concert. However, there was no basis to accept Salivateeswaran’s contention that they had been coerced into filing those affidavits. The counsel for the appellants placed strong reliance on a resolution that they claimed had been passed at an extraordinary meeting of the Bombay Union of Journalists on 17 April 1958. According to that claim, the resolution authorised the Union to take up Salivateeswaran’s dispute against “The Hindu” under section 10 of the Industrial Disputes Act and to seek relief for the “re‑trench­ed journalist Salivateeswaran”. The evidence offered in support of the existence of this resolution was found to be highly unsatisfactory. For reasons that would be explained subsequently, the Court was of the view that the evidence tended to confirm the first respondent’s plea that the record of the alleged resolution had been fabricated in order to bolster Salivateeswaran’s case. The meeting purportedly held on 17 April 1958 was not, in fact, convened as an extraordinary general meeting of the Union. It was asserted instead that the meeting was an adjourned session of an earlier gathering that had taken place on 5 April 1958. The Union’s secretary at the relevant time, Mahatame, testified that a requisition for calling a meeting had been received, that the requisition was considered at the meeting of 17 April 1958, and that a resolution supporting Salivateeswaran’s case had been passed. During cross‑examination, Mahatame conceded that the agenda for that meeting was unavailable and that his testimony was based on memory. He further claimed that cyclostyled copies of the agenda had been destroyed and that no copies were retained; that no agenda for the 17 April meeting existed; that no copies of the notice were kept; that no minutes of the general‑body meeting were recorded; and that there was no written evidence indicating who attended the meetings of 5 April and 17 April, noting that “all that happens in general‑body meetings is recorded in annual reports”. He admitted that the requisitions had been received after 5 April and, according to the Union’s rules, a fifteen‑day notice was required to convene a meeting. Mahatame asserted that he had received all the requisitions before 17 April, yet there was no record of the receipt of those requisitions. He stated that 225 members had signed the requisition and that, at the meeting, they had requested that the matter be taken up, but no record existed as to who was present. He further claimed that the notice for the 17 April meeting had been issued, but he could not specify whether it had been issued on 9 April or at a later date. The Court found it difficult to accept Mahatame’s testimony that, although minutes of the executive‑committee meetings were maintained, no records relating to the general‑body meetings were preserved, and his explanation that the agenda had been cyclostyled and subsequently destroyed was considered insufficient.

In this case, the Court found that the explanation that the resolution was originally printed on a cyclostyle and later destroyed was far too simplistic to be accepted. The Court observed that other facts, which will be discussed shortly, clearly demonstrated that the claim that a resolution had been passed on 17 April 1958 was false. During the trial, the original resolution was produced as Exhibit U‑86. That document was dated 17 April 1958 and bore the signature of D V Nathan, who was described as the president, but the year had first been written as 1959 and subsequently altered to 1958. The Court interpreted this alteration as indicating that the document was probably written in 1959, not in 1958. The alleged president, D V Nathan, had not been examined as a witness. Mahatame, however, pointed out that the Annual Report for the year 1957‑58, which was published at the end of 1958, referred only to the meeting held on 5 April and made no reference at all to a meeting on 17 April. The Court further noted that the letters sent by members were not genuine requisitions; they were merely requests urging the Union to support the cause of Salivateeswaran and did not ask the Secretary to convene a meeting.

The Court then examined the procedural rules that governed meetings of the General Body of the Bombay Union of Journalists. Under article 7(c) of the Constitution and Rules, a General Body meeting required fifteen days’ clear notice, unless the meeting was an adjournment, in which case a week's notice sufficed. Clause (g) added that any resolution concerning other business that a member wished to be considered at any meeting also required seven clear days’ notice. Clause 19 mandated that the Secretary send notice of a General Body meeting individually to every member in the time prescribed by clause 7. Clause 18, sub‑clause 2(a), required the Secretary to keep minutes of all meetings, handle all correspondence, convene meetings, and supervise the Union’s affairs and activities. The Court observed that for the alleged meeting of 17 April 1958, the required fifteen‑day notice had not been issued. Likewise, there was no evidence that the seven‑day notice required for resolutions on other business had been given. No proof existed that the prescribed notice under clause 7 had been sent to the members. Moreover, the Secretary had made a startling admission that no minutes of the meeting were kept, and that the resolution had merely been copied onto a loose sheet of paper. This failure to comply with the notice and record‑keeping requirements undermined the credibility of the purported resolution.

The Union strongly endorsed the argument presented by the respondents that the resolution allegedly passed on 17 April 1958 was fabricated at a later date. In a letter dated 25 April 1958, the Bombay Union of Journalists is recorded as having taken up the dispute involving Salivateeswaran and as having appealed to “The Hindu”, Bombay, to resolve the matter amicably; however, that correspondence contains no reference to any resolution dated 17 April 1958. Likewise, the resolution is absent from the statement of claim filed before the Industrial Tribunal. In paragraph 33 of the claim it is stated that more than two‑hundred members of the Union wrote to the Union in support of the working journalist Salivateeswaran and urged the Union to pursue his case under the Industrial Disputes Act, yet the claim makes no mention of the alleged 17 April resolution. The Hindu, in paragraph 4 of its reply, expressly averred that apart from the statement that 225 members of the Union requested its Secretary to take up Salivateeswaran’s cause, there is no evidence that the Union actually passed any resolution or authorized its Secretary to act on the matter or to raise an industrial dispute on his behalf. That assertion by The Hindu was not contested by any affidavit claiming that Salivateeswaran’s claim was backed by a Union resolution. When Venkateswaran was examined on 12 June 1959, the cross‑examination did not address the resolution, and even when Salivateeswaran was examined the resolution was not produced; it first appeared in evidence only on 9 July 1959. The letters requesting the Union to espouse Salivateeswaran’s cause were written between 9 April and 15 April 1958, and it was suggested that the matter was considered at the 17 April meeting. If that meeting was merely an adjourned continuation of the earlier meeting held on 5 April, the agenda could not have included a consideration of those letters nor could it have taken up fresh matters. Beyond the bare statement of Mahatme, supported only by the interested testimony of Salivateeswaran, there is no reliable evidence that the Secretary moved a resolution concerning Salivateeswaran at the 17 April meeting, nor that it was adopted without opposition. The documentary evidence that would normally exist if such a resolution had been passed on that date has not been produced, nor has any explanation been offered that the records were not kept or were destroyed. Moreover, even on the appellants’ case there is nothing to show that notice of a meeting convened on 17 April for the purpose of considering the requisition was ever given to Venkateswaran; if such notice was not given, the mere passage of a resolution by other Union members cannot sustain the appellants’ contention that Salivateeswaran’s claim was supported by Venkateswaran. The Tribunal observed that even…

After the reference was made, both Venkateswaran and Tiwari stopped supporting the cause of Salivateeswaran. Because they were the only individuals who could have sustained that cause, their withdrawal meant that the reference could not stand. The Court relied on the earlier judgment of a single judge of the Madras High Court in The Hindu v. The Working Journalists of the Hindu in Madras (1). However, that decision has since been set aside by a Division Bench of the Madras High Court in The Working Journalists of the Hindu v. The Hindu (2). In the latter case the Court observed that the jurisdiction of a labour court to adjudicate a dispute is determined solely by whether an industrial dispute existed or was apprehended on the date the reference was made, and not by any later development. The Court further explained that, in accordance with the statutory provisions, the court’s jurisdiction originates from the reference itself, which must be founded on an industrial dispute existing or apprehended on that reference date, and that this jurisdiction continues until an award is made and becomes enforceable. The Court stressed that the later resignation or withdrawal of workers who originally sponsored the dispute does not affect the court’s authority to proceed.

In the present matter the Court held that the observations above correctly describe the legal effect of a subsequent withdrawal of support by the work‑men who had earlier championed a cause. To decide whether an individual grievance has turned into an industrial dispute, the test is whether, on the date of the reference, the dispute was taken up as being supported by the union of the work‑men of the employer against whom the dispute is raised, whether by an individual work‑man or by a substantial number of work‑men. The citations (1) [1959] 11 L. L. J. 348 and (2) [1961] 1 L. L. J. 288 were respectively noted. If Venkateswaran or Tiwari had, before the reference date, supported Salivateeswaran’s cause, their later affidavits could not have invalidated the reference. However, as the Court observed, there was in fact no support from either Venkateswaran or Tiwari, and consequently the dispute remained an individual grievance. The Court further found that the support expressed by the Indian Federation of Working Journalists for Salivateeswaran’s claim did not require detailed examination. After the reference was filed and while it was awaiting hearing before the Tribunal, a letter dated 16 April 1959 was written by the President of the Indian Federation of Working Journalists to the General Secretary of the Bombay Union of Journalists. That letter stated that the Federation had lent its support to Salivateeswaran in the writ petition filed by “The Hindu.”

In this matter the Court recorded that on 16 April 1959 the President of the Indian Federation of Working Journalists wrote to the General Secretary of the Bombay Union of Journalists, informing the Union that the Federation was lending its support to Salivateeswaran’s petition in the Supreme Court because the case was being treated as a test case. The very next day, on 17 April 1959, the General Secretary of the Federation sent a separate letter to the Union’s General Secretary stating that the Federation had advised Salivateeswaran to present a petition before the Presiding Officer of the Industrial Court in Bombay, that the Federation had also intervened in the Supreme Court matter, and that it fully endorsed every step taken by the Bombay Union of Journalists in seeking justice for Salivateeswaran. Later, on 9 July 1959, the Secretary of the Union wrote to the President and Secretary‑General of the Federation, informing them that Salivateeswaran’s case was scheduled to be heard for a week, that cross‑examination of Salivateeswaran was to occur the following day, and that the former Secretary, Mahatame, was expected to give evidence. The Union secretary further expressed the view that the Union needed to produce some documentary proof of the Federation’s support and asked the Federation to forward a minute of a meeting, a letter, or a resolution that demonstrated such support; if no such document existed, the Union requested that the Federation pass a fresh resolution backing the Union’s actions in the Salivateeswaran case and return it by post. Acting on this request, the President of the Federation on 24 July 1959 sent a copy of a resolution that was said to have been adopted by the Working Committee of the Federation concerning Salivateeswaran’s case. The draft resolution purported to support the Bombay Union of Journalists before the Industrial Tribunal in Bombay and to direct the Union to pursue the case with “all its strength.” The Court noted that the resolution appeared to have been passed by circulation after the adjudication proceedings had already begun. The Court then observed that if the dispute was an individual dispute at its inception and remained so up to the date of the Government of Bombay’s reference, later support – even by workmen interested in the dispute – could not transform it into an industrial dispute. The Court recalled its earlier holding that a subsequent withdrawal of support does not divest an industrial tribunal of jurisdiction, and applied the same reasoning to conclude that subsequent support does not convert an individual dispute into an industrial dispute. Accordingly, the Court held that the Federation’s resolution, even assuming it possessed any legal weight, was insufficient to change the nature of the dispute. On this basis, the appeal was dismissed and the parties were ordered to bear costs.