# [1969] 2 S.C.R. 913

- **Citation:** [1969] 2 S.C.R. 913
- **Court:** Supreme Court of India
- **Decided:** 1968-11-26
- **Case number:** Civil Appeal No. 1733 of 1967
- **Bench:** J. M. Shelat, V. Bhargava
- **Source:** https://unisonlegal.in/judgment/supreme-court-of-india/1969-2-s-c-r-913-4799
- **Pages:** 7

## Headnote

Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, s. 10-Requirements for 'individual dispute' beco1ning an "'industrial dispute".
The workmen were appointed by the respondent company under the
designation of copy holders and an order in July 1959, issued by the
management, expressly described them as such.
It was alleged however,
that despite this order, the management, beth before and after the date
of the order, had always given
to the workmen the
work of proofreaders.
A dispute arose whether the two wvrkmen should be treated
as proof readers and the executive committee of the Delhi Union
of
Journalists, at a meeting on December 1, 1966, after considering the
representation made to it by the two empioyees, decided to take up their
case and thereafter initiated conciliation
proceedings.
Eventually,
the
Delhi Administration referred the dispute to the Industrial Tribunal. It
was contended by the management before the Tribunal that the dispute
was an individual dispute and not an industrial dispute so that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to adjudicate it. The Tribunal accepted this contention.
Evidence was led before the Tribunal to show that the working
Journalists employed by the respondent company numbered 131 out of
whom 68 we're employed in Delhi. Out of these, 31
were members
of the Delhi Union of Journalists which was an outside union and which
they had joined after July 1959.
The Tribunal's view was that the 31
working journalists having joined the Union after the cause of action had
arisen in July 1959,
the reSGlution
of the
union's
executive
committee would not constitute espousal of the workmen's dispute as
there would be no nexus between the dispute and the Union, and there·
fore, the resolution dated December 1, 1960 did not have the effect of
converting the dispute into an industrial dispute.
Jn appeal to this Court by special leave,
HELD : The Tribunal's view that the dispute was not an industrial
dispute, was incorrect.
Bombay Union of Journalists v. The Hindu, Bombay, [1962] 3 S.C.R.
893, Central Provinces Transport Services Ltd. v. Raghunath Gopal Patwardhan, [1956] S.C.R. 956, Newspapers Ltd. \". State Industrial Tribunal
U.P., [1957] S.C.R. 754 and Workmen v. M / s. Dharampal Premchand,
[1965] 3 S.C.R. 394, referred to.
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The espousal by the union could not be said to be beyond time a>
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such espousal could only take place after and not before the
dispute
arose or the cause of action arose.
The test of 'an industrial dispute is
whether at !be date of the referen.ce the dispute was taken up and supported by a union, or by an appreciable number of workmen. In the
present case this test was clearly satisfied. [917 CJ
If the number of working journalists in the respondent company were
!O be ~aken as 68, m~mbership of the union by as many as 31 working
iourna!1sts would certainly confer on the union a representative character
Even 1f the number of working journalists were to be taken as 13 I, it
914
SUPREME COURT REPORTS
[1969) 2 S.C.R.
would not be unreason.able to say that 3 J, i.e. about 25 % of them would,
by becoming the members of the union, give a representative character
to the union.
At the material time there was no union of . working
journalists employed by the respondent company. Therefore, in aceordance with the decision in the Workmen v. Mis. Dharampal Premchand
the union could be said to have a representative character qua the working journalists employed in the
respondent company. The union
had
taken up the cause of the two workmen by its executive comrnittee passing a resolution and its office bearers having followed up that resolution
by taking the matter before the conciliation officer. Though the grievance
of the two workmen arose in July 1959, when the management declined
to accept them as proof-readers the union had sponsored their cause be~
fore the date of reference as laid down in the case of The Hindu, Bombay.
That being the position it could not be gainsaid that the dispute was
transformed into an indus

## Text

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WORKMEN OF INDIAN EXPRESS (P) LTD.
v .
THE MANAGEMENT
November 26, 1968
[J. M. SHELAT AND V. BHARGAVA, JJ.]
Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, s. 10-Requirements for 'individual dispute' beco1ning an "'industrial dispute".
The workmen were appointed by the respondent company under the
designation of copy holders and an order in July 1959, issued by the
management, expressly described them as such.
It was alleged however,
that despite this order, the management, beth before and after the date
of the order, had always given
to the workmen the
work of proofreaders.
A dispute arose whether the two wvrkmen should be treated
as proof readers and the executive committee of the Delhi Union
of
Journalists, at a meeting on December 1, 1966, after considering the
representation made to it by the two empioyees, decided to take up their
case and thereafter initiated conciliation
proceedings.
Eventually,
the
Delhi Administration referred the dispute to the Industrial Tribunal. It
was contended by the management before the Tribunal that the dispute
was an individual dispute and not an industrial dispute so that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to adjudicate it. The Tribunal accepted this contention.
Evidence was led before the Tribunal to show that the working
Journalists employed by the respondent company numbered 131 out of
whom 68 we're employed in Delhi. Out of these, 31
were members
of the Delhi Union of Journalists which was an outside union and which
they had joined after July 1959.
The Tribunal's view was that the 31
working journalists having joined the Union after the cause of action had
arisen in July 1959,
the reSGlution
of the
union's
executive
committee would not constitute espousal of the workmen's dispute as
there would be no nexus between the dispute and the Union, and there·
fore, the resolution dated December 1, 1960 did not have the effect of
converting the dispute into an industrial dispute.
Jn appeal to this Court by special leave,
HELD : The Tribunal's view that the dispute was not an industrial
dispute, was incorrect.
Bombay Union of Journalists v. The Hindu, Bombay, [1962] 3 S.C.R.
893, Central Provinces Transport Services Ltd. v. Raghunath Gopal Patwardhan, [1956] S.C.R. 956, Newspapers Ltd. \". State Industrial Tribunal
U.P., [1957] S.C.R. 754 and Workmen v. M / s. Dharampal Premchand,
[1965] 3 S.C.R. 394, referred to.
G
The espousal by the union could not be said to be beyond time a>
H
such espousal could only take place after and not before the
dispute
arose or the cause of action arose.
The test of 'an industrial dispute is
whether at !be date of the referen.ce the dispute was taken up and supported by a union, or by an appreciable number of workmen. In the
present case this test was clearly satisfied. [917 CJ
If the number of working journalists in the respondent company were
!O be ~aken as 68, m~mbership of the union by as many as 31 working
iourna!1sts would certainly confer on the union a representative character
Even 1f the number of working journalists were to be taken as 13 I, it
914
SUPREME COURT REPORTS
[1969) 2 S.C.R.
would not be unreason.able to say that 3 J, i.e. about 25 % of them would,
by becoming the members of the union, give a representative character
to the union.
At the material time there was no union of . working
journalists employed by the respondent company. Therefore, in aceordance with the decision in the Workmen v. Mis. Dharampal Premchand
the union could be said to have a representative character qua the working journalists employed in the
respondent company. The union
had
taken up the cause of the two workmen by its executive comrnittee passing a resolution and its office bearers having followed up that resolution
by taking the matter before the conciliation officer. Though the grievance
of the two workmen arose in July 1959, when the management declined
to accept them as proof-readers the union had sponsored their cause be~
fore the date of reference as laid down in the case of The Hindu, Bombay.
That being the position it could not be gainsaid that the dispute was
transformed into an industrial dispute as it was sponsored by a union
which possessed a representative character vis-a-vis the working journalists
in the employ of the respondent company. [919 G--G]
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal No. 1733 of
1967.
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Appeal by special leave from the Award dated April 10,
1967 of the Industrial Tribunal, Delhi in Reference I.D. No. 241
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of 1961.
M. K. Ramamurti, Shyamala Pappu,
Vineet
Kumar and
Madan Mohan, for the appellants.
S. V. Gupte, La/it Bhasin, S. K. Mehta and K. L. Mehta, for
the respondent.
The Judgment of the Court was .delivered by
Shelat, J. Two workmen, Guiab Singh and Satya Pal, were
appointed by the respondent-company in December 1956 and February 1955 respectively under the designation of copy holders.
It was alleged that they were entrusted with the duties of proofreaders and therefore they claimed that they should be treated as
such. In July 1959 the management issued an order in which
the two workmen were descdbed as copy-holders.
It was alleged
that in spite of this order the management continued to give the
workmen the work of proof-readers. A dispute whether the two
workmen should be treated as proof readers having arisen and
having been espoused by the Delhi Union of Journalists, the Delhi
Administration, by a notification dated August 2, 1961 referred
it to the Industrial Tribunal, Delhi.
The management contended that the said dispute was an
individual dispute and not an industrial dispute and that that being
so it was wrongly referred to the Tribunal and the Tribunal had
no jurisdiction to adjudicate it.
The Tribunal raised the preliminary issue, namely, whether the dispute relating to the said
two workmen was an industrial dispute.· The Tribunal held that
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WORKMEN INDIAN EXPRESS v. MANAGEMENT (Shela!, J.)
915
it was not an industrial dispute but was only an individual dispute of the two ',¥orkmen and therefore it had no j~risdiction .to
adjudicate the said reference. The workmen obtamed special
leave from this Court and that is how this appeal has come up
before us for disposal.
Apart from the oral evidence, the appellants relied. on two
documents Ex. WWl/ A, which purported to be the mmutes of
a meeting held on November 15, 1960 of 17 working journalists
and Ex. WB/1 purporting to be the minutes of a meeting of the
executive committee of the Dellii Union of Journalists held on
December 1, 1960. The union maintained that these two resolutions were proof of espousal of the dispute, the fir~t by an appreciable number of the co-workers of the two aggneved workmen and the second by the union and therefore the dispute though
originally an individual dispute was converted into an industrial
dispute.
The Tribunal rejected
Ex. WWl/ A, namely, the
minutes of the alleged meeting of the 17 working journalists in
the employ of the respondent company as unreliable. The Tribunal next considered whether, even assuming that the said 17
working journalists espoused the cause of the two workmen that
espousal transformed the dispute in question into an industrial
dispute, in other words, whether they constituted an appreciable
number sufficient to change the dispute into an industrial dispute.
At the material time the Branch office of the respondent company
at Dellii consisted in all of 388 employees, out of whom 140 were
working in the Press.
The working journalists numbered 131,
out of whom 63 were outstation correspondents and the remaining
68 were working journalists performing their duties in Dellii and
New Delhi. The Tribunal held that though the said 63 working
journalists were outstation journalists they nevertheless belonged
to the staff of the respondent company"s Delhi Branch, and therefore, could not be excluded from consideration.
The question
which the Tribunal posed to itself was whether 17 out of the said
131 working _journalists c_ould be said to be an appreciable number. A,ccordmg to the Tribunal, even if those 63 outstation corresp?ndents were excluded and only 68 working journalists were
cons1dere?, 17 of them would not constitute an appreciable number sufficient to convert the said dispute into an industrial dispute .
h also held that. mere passmg of a !esolution without anything
done to follow 1.t up was not sufficient to constitute espousal.
l_'here was no evidence that after passing the said alleged resolution on Novemb~r 15,
~960 anything further was done.
On
these ~acts the .Tn bunal did not consider the aforesaid resolution
assummg that It was passed, as constituting espousal.
'
As regar?s the resolution d.ated December 1, · 1960 the minutes
of the me~tlng of the executive committee of the Delhi Union
of Journalists were produced before the Tribunal.
The minutes
916
SUPREME COURT REPORTS
[l 969J 2 S.C.R.
stated that the meeting after considering the representation made
to it by the employees of the Indian Express decided to take up
the case of the two workmen and authorised the office bearers
of the union to initiate the necessary proceedings. The Tribunal
found that the union initiated a fresh dispute before the Conciliation Officer and that there was no pending case initiated earlier,
i.e., before December 1, 1960 by another union as alleged by the
appellants -which could have been continued by the union.
A
copy of the statement of claim filed by the union before the Conciliation Officer was also produced before the Tribunal. There
was evidence that 31 working journalists employed in the respondent company had become the members of the Delhi Union of
Journalists. But they had joined the union after the said order
of July 1959. The Tribunals' view was that the said 31 working
journalists having joined the Delhi Union of Journalists after the
cause of action had arisen in July 1959, the said resolution of
the union's executive committee would not constitute espousal
as there would be no nexus between the dispute and the union,
and therefore, the resolution dated December 1, 1960 did not
have the effect of converting the said dispute into an industrial
dispute.
Mr. Ramamurti, for the appellants, contended that the resolution dated December l, 1960 coupled with the fact that the
union initiated conciliation proceedings in respect of the demand
of the said two workmen was sufficient to transform the dispute
into an industrial dispute.
On the other hand, Mr. Gupte, appearing for the company, contended that a dispute which is prima
facie an individual dispute may assume the character of an industrial dispute if it is taken up or espoused by an appreciable
body of the workmen of the establishment. Espousal by a union
is regarded as sufficient, for, that means that it is an espousal
by an appreciable number of workmen in that establishment. If
such a dispute is espoused by an outside union, the workmen of
the establishment, appreciable in number, must be members of
such a union. On these contention, the question for our determination is whether the Delhi Union of Journalists can be said
to have espoused the dispute of the two workmen; if so, whether it did in time, and whether the union not being exclusively a
union of the workmen employed in the respondent company,
could espouse the said cause.
The resolution dated December 1, 1960 passed by the executive committee of the union was not disbelieved by the Tribunal.
That, coupled with the fact that the union authorities initiated the conciliation proceeding, must mean that the union had
espoused the cause of the two workmen.
The dispute arose in
July 1959 when the management refused to treat the two workc
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WORKMEN INDIAN EXPRESS v. MANAGEMENT (She/at, J.)
917
men as proof-readers. Thereafter the executive committee, after
considering a representation made to it by the employees of the
respondent company, as the resolution reads, passed .~e. said resolution authorising the office bearers of the umon to 1mtiate proceedings in the matter of the said dispute and the secretary accordingly initiated proceedings before the conciliation officer. In these
circumstances, it is not possible to appreciate how the espousal
by the union can be said to be beyond time as such espousal can
only take place after and not before the dispute arose, or as counsel put it, the cause of action arose. In The Bombay Union of
Journalists v. The Hindu, Bombay(') this Court in clear terms
laid down that the test of an industrial dispute is whether at the
date of the reference the dispute was taken up and supported by
a union, or by an appreciable number of workmen. There being
no doubt of the union having taken up the cause of the two workmen before the reference the first two parts of the question must
be answered in the affirmative.
The next question is whether the cause of a workman in a
particular establishment in an industry can be sponsored by a
union which is not of workmen of that establishment but is one
of which membership is open to workmen of other establishments
in that industry.
In Central Provinces Transport Services Ltd.
v. Raghunath Gopa/ Patwardhan(') this Court noted that decided cases in India disclosed three views as to the meaning of an
industrial dispute: (1) a dispute between an employer and a single
workman cannot be an industrial dispute, (2) it can be an industrial dispute and ( 3) it cannot per se be an industrial dispute but
may become one if taken up by a trade union or a number of
workmen. After discussing the scope of industrial dispute as defined in sec. 2(k) of the Act it observed that the preponderance of
judicial opinion was clearly in favour of the last of the three views
and that there was considerable reason behind it.
In the Newspapers Ltd. v. The State Industrial Tribunal, U.P. (3 ) the third
respondent was employed as a lino typist by the appellant compan~. On .an allegation of incompetence he was dismissed from
service.
His case was not taken up by any union of workers of
the appellant company, nor by any of the unions of workmen em-
~loyed i? similar or allied trades. But the U.P. Working Journalists Umon, Lucknow, with which the third respondent had no
concern, took the matter to the Conciliation Board. On a reference be1:ig made to the Industrial Tribunal by the Government
the legahty of that reference was challenged by the appellant compa~y on t?e ~ound that the said dispute could not be treated as
an ~ndustrrnl dispute under the U.P. Industrial Disputes Act 1947
which defined by sec. 2 an industrial dispute as having the same
(1) [1962] 3 S.C.R. 893.
(3) [1957] S.C.R. 754.
(2) [1956] S.C.R. 95~.
918
SUPREME COURT REPORTS
[1969] 2 S.C.R.
meaning assigned to it in sec. 2(k) of the Central Act. This Court
upheld the contention observing that the notification referring the
said dispute proceeded on an assumption that a dispute existed
between the employer and "his workmen", that Tajammul Hussain, the workman concerned, could not be described as "workmen", nor could the U.P. Working Journalists Union be called
"'his workmen" nor was there any evidence to show that a dispute
had got transformed into an industrial dispute.
The question
whether the union sponsoring a dispute must be the union of workmen in the establishment in which the workman concerned is employed or not had not so far arisen. It seems such a question
arose for the first time in the case of Bombay Union of Journalists
v. The Hindu, Bombay('). The decision in that case laid down
(1) that the Industrial Disputes Act excluded its application to
an individual dispute as distinguished from a dispute involving a
group of workmen unless such a dispute is made a common cause
by a body or a considerable section of workmen and (2) the members of a union who are not workmen of the employer against
whom the dispute is sought to be raised cannot by their support
convert an individual dispute into an industrial dispute. Persons
who seek to support the cause must themselves be directly and
substantially interested in the dispute and persons who are not the
employees of the same employer cannot be regarded as so interested. The Court held that the dispute there being prima facie an
individual dispute it was necessary in order to convert it into an
industrial dispute that it should be taken up by a union of the employees or by an appreciable number of employees of Hindu, Bombay. The Bombay Union of Journalists not being a union of the
employees of the Hindu, Bombay, but a union of all employees
in the industry of journalism in Bombay, its support of the cause
of the workman concerned would not convert the individual dispute
into an industrial dispute.
The members of such a union cannot
be said to be persons substantially and directly interested in the
dispute between the workman concerned and his employer, the
Hindu Bombay.
But in Workmen v. Mis. Dharampal Premchand(2) this Court, after reviewing the previous decisions, distinguished the case of Hindu, Bombay and held that notwithstanding the width of the words used in sec. 2(k) of the Act a dispute
raised
by
an
individual
workman
cannot
become
an
industrial dispute
unless
it
is
supported either
by his
union or in the absence of a union by a number of workmen, that a union may validly raise a dispute though it may be a
minority union of the workmen employed in an establishment
that if there was no union of workmen in an establishment a
groun of employees can raise the dispute which becomes an industrial dispute even though it is a dispute relating to an individual
(1)
[19623]
S.C.R. 893.
(I) [1965] 3 S.C.R. 394.
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WORKMEN JNDIAN EXPRESS V. MANAGEMENT (She/at, J.)
919
workman, and last! y, that where the workmen of an establishment have no union of their own and some or all of them have
joined a union of another establishment belonging to the same
industry, if such a union takes up the cause of the workman
working in an establishment which has no union of its own, the dispute would become an industrial dispute if such a union can claim
a representative character in a way that its support would make
the dispute an industrial dispute.
The evidence of the union secretary was that in 1959-60, 31
working journalists of the respondent company were members of
the Delhi Union of Journalists.
It was nobody's case that these
31 members did not continue to be the members of that union in
1960-61 also. If the number of working journalists in the respondent company were to be taken as 68 membership of the union
by as many as 31 working journalists would certainly confer on
the union a representative character. Even if the number of working journalists were to be taken as 131, it would not be unreasonable to say that 31, i.e., about 25% of them would, by becoming
the members of the union, give a representative character to the
union.
It is clear from the evidence that at the material time
there was no union of working journalists employed by the respondent company. Therefore, in accordance with the decision in
the Workmen v. Mis. Dharampal Premchand(') the union can
be said to have a representative character qua the working journalists employed in the respondent company. There can be no
doubt that the union had taken up the cause of the two workmen
by its executive committee passing the said resolution and its office
bearers having followed up that resolution by taking the matter
before the conciliation officer.
Though the grievance of the two
workmen arose in July 1959 when the management declined to
accept them as proof-readers the union had sponsored their cause
before the date of reference as laid down in the case of Hindu
~ombay. That being the position it cannot be gainsaid that th~
dispute was tr~nsform.ed into an industrial dispute as it was sponsored by a umon which possessed a representative character visa-vis the working journalists in the
employ of the respondent
company.
. We must, therefore, hold that the Tribunal's view that the
dispute was not an industrial dispute was incorrect. The award,
therefore, will ·have to be set aside and the appeal of the workmen
allowed. There will be no order as to costs.
R.K.P.S.
Appeal allowed.
(I) [1%3] 3 S.C.R. 394.