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PETITIONER: THE BALLARPUR COLLIERIES CO.

       Vs.

RESPONDENT: STATE INDUSTRIAL COURT, NAGPUR AND OTHERS

DATE OF JUDGMENT: 15/11/1965

BENCH: WANCHOO, K.N. BENCH: WANCHOO, K.N. GAJENDRAGADKAR, P.B. (CJ) RAMASWAMI, V. SATYANARAYANARAJU, P.

CITATION:  1966 AIR  925            1966 SCR  (2) 589

ACT: Central  Provinces and Berar Industrial Disputes  Settlement Act.  No.  23 of 1947, s. 1(3),  Notification  under-Certain industries exempted from operation of provisions of the Act- Head Office of mining company whether exempted.

HEADNOTE: The  appellant was a mining company with its head office  at Nagpur.   The business of the head office was to look  after the sale of coal extracted from the collieries.  An employee of the company working in the head office made  applications under  s. 16 of the Central Provinces and  Berar  Industrial Disputes Settlement Act, 1947, to the Assistant Commissioner of  Labour, Nagpur.  The company objected that by virtue  of the  notification  under  s.  1(3) of  the  Act  the  mining industry  had  been exempted from the operation of  the  Act including   s.  16  and  therefore  the   Assistant   Labour Commissioner had no jurisdiction.  The authorities under the Act  as well as the High Court under Arts. 226 and 227,  re- jected  the company’s contention.  The High Court  took  the view  that  what  was  exempted by the  third  item  in  the notification was not the head office of a mine but the  mine itself  and  consequently the employees of the  head  office were  governed  by  the Act.  The company  appealed  to  the Supreme Court by special leave. HELD : The notification in question said that the Act  would come  into  force  on  21st  November,  1947  "in  all   the industries  except the following" and then went on  to  name four industries the third one being ’Mines’.  After the word ’following’ the, word industries must be read and thus read the  notification  in effect said the Act  would  come  into effect on the  given  date  in  all  industries  except  the industries mentioned. Therefore    it was not only mines but the  mining  industry  itself that  was  exempted  from  the operation of the Act. [593 A-B, D E] If  the notification exempted the industry of mines  or  the mining industry it could not be said that it merely exempted that  part of the said industry of mines or mining  industry which consisted of raising coat at the colliery and did  not include  the head office thereof.  As the High  Court  said,

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the  head office was part of the integrated activity of  the company.   Therefore when the mining industry  was  exempted from the operation of the Act the exemption applied not only to that part of the industry which consisted of raising coal at the colliery but also to that part of it which  consisted in  the  sale of coal and its supply to  the  customers  and would thus include the head office also. [593 E-G] M/s.   Godavari Sugar Mills Ltd. v. D. K.  Worlikar,  A.I.R. 1960 S.C. 842 and M/s.  Serajuddin and Co. v. Their Workmen, [1962] 3. Supp.  S.C.R. 934, distinguished. On  the above view the Assistant Labour Commissioner had  no jurisdiction  under  the  Act to deal  with  the  matter  in question. [595 E]

JUDGMENT: CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 30 of 1965. 5 9 0 Appeal  by special leave from the judgment and  order  dated September 8, 1962 of the Bombay High Court in Special  Civil Application No. 364 of 1961. C.   B.  Agarwala, 0. P. Malhotra, J. B. Dadachanji,  O.  C. Mathur    and Ravinder Narain, for the appellant. G.   L. Sangli and A. G. Ratnaparkhi, for respondent No. 3. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by Wanchoo,  J.  The  only question raised in  this  appeal  by special.  leave is whether the Central Provinces  and  Berar Industrial  Disputes  Settlement  Act, No.  XXIII  of  1947, (hereinafter  referred to as the Act) is applicable  to  the head office of the appellant which is known as the Ballarpur Collieries  Company.  The head office is situate  in  Nagpur and has a staff of about 35 employees.  The business of  the head office is to look after the sale of coal extracted from the collieries. The  question  arises in this way.  Bapat respondent  was  a stenographer  working in the head office at Nagpur.  He  was dismissed  from  service  on  July  31,  1959.   It  is  not necessary  for  present purposes to go into  the  facts  and circumstances  leading  to this dismissal.   Suffice  it  to mention  that an enquiry was said to have been  held  before the  dismissal  order was passed.  While  this  enquiry  was pending  Bapat  made an application under S. 16 of  the  Act before the Assistant Commissioner of Labour, Nagpur, on July 21,  1959.   In  this  application  Bapat  prayed  that  the employer should be ordered to pay him wages from the date of dismissal,  discharge  or removal to the date of  the  order under s.  16 in addition to a sum not exceeding Rs. 2,500 by way of    compensation.    It  was  also  prayed  that   the employer should be  ordered to pay retrenchment compensation under  Chap.  V-A of the Industrial Disputes Act, No. 14  of 1947  (hereinafter referred to as the Central Act  No.  14). Though  this  application  was  headed  as  application  for reinstatement and compensation etc., there was no prayer for reinstatement and Bapat was only content to ask for a sum of Rs.  2,500 by way of compensation.  While  this  application was  pending, Bapat was, as already indicated, dismissed  on July 31, 1959.  Thereupon he filed another application under S. 16 of the Act on August 19, 1959.  In this application he prayed for reinstatement or in the alternative for full com- pensation amounting to Rs. 2,500 and such other relief as he might be entitled to. The  main contention of the appellant before  the  Assistant Commissioner of Labour was that the Act did not apply to  it and

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591 therefore the Assistant Commissioner had no jurisdiction  to proceed in the matter.  The Assistant Commissioner held that the  Act  applied and he had jurisdiction to deal  with  the matter.  He therefore gave relief by setting aside the order of dismissal and directing that the employer should pay  Rs. 2,000  as compensation and wages from the date of  dismissal to the date of his order. This  order  was taken in revision by the appellant  to  the State  Industrial Court at Nagpur, and the  main  contention again  urged  there was that the Act did not  apply  to  the appellant and the Assistant Commissioner had no jurisdiction to  deal  with  the matter.  This contention  did  not  find favour with the State Industrial Court with the result  that the revision was dismissed. The  appellant then filed a petition under Articles 226  and 227  of  the Constitution in the High Court,  and  the  same contention  was  raised that the Act did not apply  and  the Assistant  Commissioner had no jurisdiction in  the  matter. The  High  Court  held on a  construction  of  the  relevant provisions of the Act and the notification issued thereunder that  the  Act was applicable and in  consequence  the  writ petition  was dismissed.  The High Court having  refused  to give  leave to appeal to this Court, the appellant  obtained special  leave from this Court; and that is how  the  matter has come before us. Section 1 of the Act came into force on June 2, 1947,  andas provided  by S. 1(3) thereof, the rest of the Act came  into force  on November 21, 1947, on a notification being  issued by  the State Government in that behalf.  Section 1(3)  lays down  that "the State Government may by  notification  bring the  remaining  sections or any of them into force  in  such area or industry and on such date as may be specified in the notification." By virtue of the power conferred on the State Government by S. 1(3) the following notification was  issued on November 2,               "In  exercise of the powers conferred by  sub-               section  (3)of  section  1,  of  the   Central               Provinces   and  Berar   Industrial   Disputes               Settlement    Act,   1947,   the    Provincial               Government are pleased to direct that sections               2 to 61 of the said Act shall come into  force               on   the  21st  November  1947,  in  all   the               industries except the following namely :-               (i)   Textile industry.               (ii)  Employment in any industry carried on by               or   under  the  authority  of   the   Central               Government               592               by  an  Indian State Railway or by  a  Railway               Company operating an Indian State Railway.               (iii) Mines.               (iv)  Saw Mills." It  is the interpretation of this notification  which  calls for  consideration in the present appeal.   The  appellant’s contention is that by this notification, the Act was applied as  from  November 21, 1947, to all industries  except  four specified therein; and of these, the third was mines.  It is urged on behalf of the appellant that when the  notification provided  for the application of the Act to .all  industries except four which were excepted it was exempting the  mining industry  by  the  third item  of  exemption.   The  nlining industry  according to the appellant will include  the  head office, for as the High Court says, "it is not disputed that the  Head  Office is a part of integrated  activity  of  the

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petitioner-company   which  carries  on  the   business   of producing  coal  and  its sale and  supply  to  its  various customers."  The argument is that the head office at  Nagpur being  a  part  of integrated activity of  carrying  on  the mining  industry  by  the appellant,  the  head  office  was equally  exempt  from  the application of  the  Act  by  the notification  in  question.  If that is so,  no  application under  S.  16  of  the Act could be made  by  Bapat  to  the Assistant Commissioner of Labour.  It is also pointed out on behalf of the appellant that Bapat would have a remedy under the Central Act No. 14 of 1947 which came into force earlier than  the Act from April 1, 1947, though the  procedure  for obtaining  relief under that Act would be different  namely, through- a reference by the appropriate Government under  s. 10 of the Central  Act No. 14 of 1947. The  High Court however held that what was exempted  by  the third item in the notification was not the head office of  a mine  but  the mine itself and no  more..  Consequently  the employees at the head office of the appellant were  governed by the Act.  This view of the High Court is being  supported by  the  respondents  before us, and it is  urged  that  the notification  uses  the  word " mines"  and  not  the  words "mining  industry" in the exemption part and therefore  what was exempted from the Act were merely -the coal mines  where mining  operations  were  carried  on  and  not  the  mining industry, which may include the head office also. We  are of the opinion that the contention raised on  behalf of  the  appellant  is correct, and  what  the  notification exempted  was the mining industry from the operation of  the Act.   In  this %connection we may refer  to  the  following words in the notification  5 93 namely,  "the  said Act shall come into force  on  the  21st November, 1947 in a11 the industries except the  following". Grammatically  the word "industries" must be  understood  as following   the  word"following"  appearing  in  the   above sentence.   Thus  what the notification in effect  said  was that  the  said Act shall come into force on  21st  November 1947 in all the industries except the following, industries. It  has however, been urged that if that was so, it was  not necessary,  for example, in the first item of  examption  to use  the  words "textile industry", and it would  have  been sufficient to use the word "textile".  All that we need  say is that the notification is not a work of art and has to  be read  in its tenor without trying to find out why  the  word "industry"  was used in the first item and why the same  was not  used  in the third and fourth items,  which  deal  with "Mines"   and  "Saw  Mills"  respectively.    Grammatically, however, this part of the notification clearly says that the Act would apply to all industries except the four industries specified therein for the purpose of exemption.  These  four exemptions  include  the  industry  of  mines.   We  see  no difference between the words "mining industry" and "industry of  mines",  for  they  mean the  same  thing,  namely,  the industry  which is concerned with mines.  If  therefore  the notification  exempted the industry of mines or  the  mining industry it cannot be said that it merely exempted that part of  the  said  industry of mines or  mining  industry  which consisted  of  raising  coal at the  colliery  and  did  not include  the  head  office  thereof.   As  we  have  already indicated, the High Court has said that "it is not  disputed that the head office is a part of integrated activity of the petitioner   company  which  carries  on  the  business   of producing  coal  and  its sale and  supply  to  its  various customers".   Therefore, when the industry of mines  or  the

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mining industry was exempted from the operation of the  Act, the exemption applied not only to that part of the  industry which consisted of raising coal at the colliery but also  to that part of it which consisted in the sale of coal and  its supply  to customers and would thus include the head  office also.  As we read the notification we see no escape from the conclusion  that what was exempted from the  application  of the Act was the industry of mines or the mining industry and that would include not only the colliery where the coal  was raised but also the head office from where the coal was sold ’and distributed to the customers. It  now remains to refer to two cases on which reliance  was placed  by the High Court.  The first is  Messrs.   Godavari Sugar  Mills Ltd. v. D. K. Worlikar(1).  In that  case  this Court held (1)  [1960] 3 S.C.R. 305. 5 9 4 that the notification under challenge there did not apply to the head office of the Sugar Mills.  That decision turned on the actual words of the notification and is of no assistance to the respondents.  It was pointed out in that case that if the notification had merely used the words "sugar  industry" it would have been possible to construe that expression in a broader  sense having regard to the wide definition  of  the word  "industry";  but  the  notification  had  deliberately adopted  a different phraseology and had brought within  its purview  not the sugar industry as such but the  manufacture of sugar and its by-products.  The words of the notification in that case were "the said Act shall apply to the following industry,  namely,  the  manufacture of sugar  and  its  by- products".   Therefore on the words of the  notification  in that  case, the wide implication which might have arisen  if the  notification had merely stated that the Act applied  to the sugar industry was cut down by the specific words in the notification,  namely,  manufacture  of sugar  and  its  by- products, which would clearly apply only to a part of  sugar industry  which dealt with the manufacture of sugar and  the by-products and would not apply to the head office which did not  deal  with the actual manufacture but  dealt  with  the consequent steps following on the manufacture viz., sale and distribution   to  customers.   In  the  present  case   the notification clearly applied to the industry of mines  which in our opinion is nothing different from mining industry and must  therefore  take in the entire industry  including  the raising   of  coal  from  the  colliery  as  .well  as   its distribution,  sale and supply to the customers.  That  case therefore is of no help to the respondents. The  next  case  to  which  reference  is  made  is  Messrs. Serajuddin and Company v. Their workmen(1).  In that case  a dispute relating to the head office of a mining company  was referred by the Government of West Bengal to the  industrial tribunal and a question arose whether the Government of West Bengal was the appropriate government within the meaning  of S. 2 (a) (i) of the Central Act No. 14 of 1947.  It was held that   the  West  Bengal  Government  was  the   appropriate government and the decision turned on the interpretation  of S.  2  (a) (i) of the said Act  which  defined  "appropriate government".   The  words which came in  for  interpretation were  "in  relation to an industrial  dispute  concerning  a banking or an insurance company, a mine, an oil-field, or  a major port".  It was held that the word "mine" as used in s. 2  (a) (i) of the Central Act No. 14 of 1947 referred  to  a mine  as  defined in the Mines Act and that a  dispute  with reference  to  the head office of a mine was not  a  dispute concerning the mine which

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(1)  [1962] 3 Supp.  S.C.R. 934.  5 9 5 must  mean  a mine as defined in the Mines Act.   That  case also  is of no help to the respondents for here we  are  not concerned  with the word "mine’; what we are concerned  with is  whether the exemption clause in the  notification  which exempts  the industry of mines or the mining  industry  will take in the head office.  The words therefore in the present notification are different and the decision in that case  is of  no  help.  We have no doubt that when  the  notification exempts  the industry of mines or the mining industry  which in  our opinion mean the same thing, the exemption  includes the  he-ad office also which must be treated as an  integral part  of the mining industry, for it deals with  the  subse- quent  steps  taken to dispose of, in this  case,  the  coal raised from the colliery. Learned  counsel for the appellant wished to argue that  the head office carried on other activities besides the activity of  selling  coal  raised from the colliery.   We  have  not allowed  him to raise this point for this was not raised  in the High Court.  We have already referred to the observation of  the  High Court that it was not disputed that  the  head office  was a part of integrated activity of the  appellant- company which carried on the business of producing coal  and its  sale and supply to its various customers.  It  was  not even the case of the respondents in reply in the High  Court that the head office carried on other activities besides the sale and distribution of the coal produced in the colliery. In  the  view  we have taken of  the  notification  and  its interpretation   we  are  of  opinion  that  the   Assistant Commissioner of Labour had no jurisdiction under the Act  to deal  with  the application of Bapat.  In this view  of  the matter the appeal must be allowed and the orders of the High Court,   the  State  Industrial  Court  and  the   Assistant Commissioner  of Labour are set aside.  We therefore  direct the dismissal of the application under S. 16 of the Act.  In the circumstances we pass no order as to costs. Appeal allowed. 596