Voluntary implementation of an award bars later challenge to reinstatement, back wages and long-settled regularisation.

A party that voluntarily implements an award and allows the other side to alter its position over a long period cannot later resile and reopen settled relief. The SC held that the management, having reinstated the workmen, absorbed them in regular service and allowed them to continue for years, could not challenge reinstatement and back wages after such compliance. The Court also sustained regularisation because the long-settled service position and the management's own implementation could not be disturbed on a narrow objection that the reference did not expressly seek that relief. The workmen's appeal succeeded and the earlier award and Single Judge's order were restored.

---

---

Issues: (i) Whether the management could be permitted to challenge reinstatement and back wages after having voluntarily implemented the award and allowed the workmen to continue in service for many years; (ii) Whether the direction of regularisation in service could be sustained in the facts of the case.

Issue (i): Whether the management could be permitted to challenge reinstatement and back wages after having voluntarily implemented the award and allowed the workmen to continue in service for many years.

Analysis: The management had obtained only conditional interim protection and was required to pay wages last drawn during the writ proceedings. Instead of merely preserving its interim protection, it reinstated the workmen and further issued orders absorbing them in regular service. The Court treated this as voluntary implementation of the award in substance, followed by prolonged inaction while the workmen remained in service for about two decades. In such circumstances, the management could not approbate and reprobate by accepting the benefit of the award and later seeking to reopen it after the workmen had altered their position.

Conclusion: The challenge to reinstatement and back wages was not maintainable, and the award on these aspects was upheld in favour of the workmen.

Issue (ii): Whether the direction of regularisation in service could be sustained in the facts of the case.

Analysis: Although the Division Bench had set aside regularisation on the reasoning that the reference did not expressly seek that relief, the Court found that the decisive facts were ignored. The workmen had already been absorbed and had served for a long period pursuant to the management's own implementation of the award. The Court held that disturbing that position after such a long lapse of time would be unjust and would defeat the effect of the earlier compliance and the settled factual position.

Conclusion: The direction restoring regularisation was sustained, and the workmen succeeded on this issue.

Final Conclusion: The workmen's appeal succeeded, the management's appeal failed, and the earlier award and the learned Single Judge's order were restored, leaving the long-settled service position undisturbed.

Ratio Decidendi: A party that voluntarily implements an award and allows the opposite party to alter its position over a substantial period cannot later resile from that conduct and invoke judicial correction to undo the settled benefit.

---