People Insights

Legal insights -The concept of Community of interest

I wanted to bring to our readers notice important positions of the Supreme Court in respect of Labour Law in the next few issues. Can the regular workmen of a Company espouse the cause of contract workmen? This point came to my mind as one of my clients asked me on this aspect. I wish to refer to two case laws on this subject to clarify the point. The workmen of Dimakuchi Tea Estate, had espoused the cause of one Dr. K. P. Banerjee, Assistant Medical Officer, who had been dismissed unheard with a month's salary in lieu of notice but who had accepted such payment and left the garden. But the dispute raised was ultimately referred by the Government for adjudication under s. 10 of the Act. Both the Tribunal and the Appellate Industrial Tribunal took the view that as Dr. Banerjee was not an workman within the meaning of the Act, the, dispute was not an industrial dispute as defined by S. 2(k): It did go up to the Supreme Court which held that the expression 'any person' occurring in S. 2(k) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, cannot be given its ordinary meaning and must be read and understood in the context of the Act and the object the Legislature had in view. Nor can it be equated either with the word 'workman' or 'employee'. The two tests of an industrial dispute as defined by the section must, therefore, be,- (1) The dispute must be a real dispute, capable of being settled by relief given by one party to the other, (2) The person in respect of whom the dispute is raised must be one in whose employment, non- employment, terms of employment, or conditions of labour (as the case may be), the parties to the dispute have a direct or substantial interest, and this must depend on the facts and circumstances of each particular case. Applying these tests, the dispute in the above case was concluded that in respect of a person who was not a workman and belonged to a different category altogether, could not be said to be a dispute within the meaning of S. 2(k) of the Act. This concept became a guideline for future cases. In the Gujarat Electricity ... vs Hind Mazdoor Sabha & Ors in 1995 the Supreme Court observed to a similar query wherein the permanent workmen had taken up the cause of contract workmen that there can be no doubt that there is community of interest in this case between the respondents and the workmen of Ramji Gordhan the Contractor and Company. They belong to the same class and they do the work of the same employer and it is possible for the company to give the relief which the respondents are claiming. The respondents have also a substantial interest in the subject-matter of the dispute, namely, the abolition of the contract system in doing work of this kind. It observed that the respondents have a community of interest with the workmen of the contractors and therefore it is an industrial dispute and the reference was competent."