Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 – s.11 – Res judicata – Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 – s.10 – Central Government directed Appellant No.1-PSU to reduce the retirement age of pre-1978 employees from 60 years to 58 years – Respondents-Trade Unions filed writ petition against the direction – Single Judge of the High Court dismissed the writ petition – In intra-Court appeal, the Division Bench of the High Court affirmed the order of the Single Judge of the High Court – Aggrieved, Trade unions filed special leave petitions in the Supreme Court, which were dismissed – Thereafter, State Government made an industrial reference at the instance of the Trade unions to the Labour Court regarding the same issue – The Labour Court held that the reference made by the State was barred by the principle of res judicata – Aggrieved, Trade unions filed another writ petition against the award passed by the Labour Court – High Court quashed the award passed by the Labour Court and held that reference was not barred by res judicata – On appeal, held: After the dismissal of the Special Leave Petitions filed by the Trade Unions, the issue in relation to reduction of age had attained finality – The High Court was not justified in setting aside the awards of the Labour Court, which had rightly held that it (Labour Court) had no jurisdiction to entertain the reference and nor it had the jurisdiction to answer it on merits – No judicial forum at the instance of any party to the Lis had jurisdiction to try these issues again on its merits – It was barred for being tried again by virtue of principles of res judicata contained in Section 11 of the Code, which has also application to the labour/industrial proceedings. Allowing the appeals, the Court
HELD: 1. In the instant case, it is not in dispute that the issue in relation to reduction of age from 60 to 58 years was raised by the Trade Unions/Respondents in the first round of litigation by filing the original petitions in the Kerala High Court. These writ petitions were dismissed by the Single Judge on merits by order dated 12.08.2003. The respondents/Trade Unions then carried the issue in intra court appeals before the Division Bench. The appeal was dismissed by the Division Bench by order dated 18.12.2003. The Trade Unions/respondents then filed special leave to appeals in this Court and by order dated 23.04.2004, this Court dismissed the SLPs and affirmed the order of the Division Bench.[Para 28][749-C-E]
2. The effect of passing of these orders was that the issue in relation to reduction of age from 60 to 58 years including all incidental issues arising therefrom, attained finality because they were already decided on the merits between the parties to the Lis. [Para 29][749-F]
3. No judicial forum at the instance of any party to the Lis had jurisdiction to try these issues again on its merits. It was barred for being tried again by virtue of principles of res judicata contained in Section 11 of the Civil Procedure Code, which has also application to the labour/industrial proceedings. [Para 30] [749-G]
4. The State had, therefore, no jurisdiction to make a reference(s) to the Labour Court under Section 10 of the Industrial Disputes Act to re-examine the question of age reduction made by the appellant(PSU). A fortiori, the Labour Court had no jurisdiction to entertain the reference(s) to adjudicate the question(s) referred in the reference(s).[Para 31][749-G; 750-A] R.C. Tiwari v. MP State Co-operative Marketing
Federation Ltd. & Ors. (1997) 5 SCC 125 : [1997]
3 SCR 795 ; Pondicherry Khadi & Village Industries Board v. P. Kulothangan & Anr. (2004) 1 SCC 68 : [2003] 5 Suppl. SCR 62 ; Executive Engineer, ZP Engg. Divn. & Anr. v. Digambara Rao & Ors. (2004) 8 SCC 262: [2004] 4 Suppl. SCR 716 – relied on.
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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