Constitution of India – Writ – Scope of jurisdiction of High Court – Wages – Revision – The demands of the Union would appear from the charter of demand and they primarily relate to prayers for revision in pay scale/wages/salaries along with certain allowances such as leave facilities and gratuity – The Tribunal, in its award passed, granted relief to the employees – Writ petitions filed – The High Court entered into the factfinding exercise while testing legality of an award – The High Court allowed the workmen’s writ petition by setting aside the award of the Tribunal so far as the first four demands as per the charter are concerned and upheld the Tribunal’s verdict regarding Demand No. 5-11 – Correctness:
Held: Analysis of the various judgments of the Supreme Court reflect the position of law that though the High Court ought not to re-appreciate evidence and substitute its own finding for that of the Tribunal, it would not be beyond the jurisdiction of the High Court in its power of judicial review to altogether eschew such a process – The High Court, in the impugned judgment, however, re-appreciated the evidence led before the Tribunal in identifying comparable concerns for applying the industry-cum-region test – In particular, the employer has emphasised that the High Court ignored the negative financial status of the company on the ground that the losses made by it was miniscule – The financial capacity of an employer is an important factor which could not be ignored in fixing wage structure – In the given facts where the employer seriously contested the use of the concerned units as comparable ones, and highlighted its difficult financial position, the proper course would have been to remit the matter to the Industrial Tribunal rather than entering into these factual question independently in exercise of the writ jurisdiction – This exercise would have required leading of evidence before the primary forum, the Industrial Tribunal in this case. [Para 15]
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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