TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1969 (2) TMI 80
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....overnment. At the material time there were two rival workmen's unions in the company, the Praga Tools Employees' Union and the Praga Tools Corporation Mazdoor Sabh (hereinafter referred to as the "union" and the "sabha", respectively). On July 1, 1961, a settlement was arrived at between the company and the said union under which the workmen, inter alia, agreed to observe industrial truce for a period of three years and not to resort to strikes, stoppage of work or go-slow tactics. On December 10, 1962, the company and the said union entered into a supplementary settlement under which the company agreed not to retrench or lay-off any of the workmen during the said period of truce on an assurance from the said union of co-operation and willingness of the workmen to carry out alternative tasks assigned to them even if they were in a slightly lower cadre without loss of emoluments. The said two settlements were arrived at and recorded in the presence of the Commissioner of Labour under sections 2(p) and 18(1) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, and were to be in force as aforesaid until July 1, 1964. On December 20, 1963, however, the company entered into an agreement with the sa....
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....r order or direction restraining the respondents to implement or enforce the said agreement. The writ petition was in the first instance heard by a learned single judge of the High Court before whom the workmen raised the following contentions: (1) that the said agreement dated December 20, 1963, was invalid as it was entered into by the union in collusion with the company and was in violation of the said two earlier settlements, (2) that there could be no industrial dispute within the meaning of section 2(k) of the Act as the said two earlier settlements, not having been terminated under section 19(2), were in force, that therefore there could not be a valid conciliation under section 12 and accordingly the fact of the conciliation officer having signed the impugned agreement gave no binding force to it, (3) that the retrenchment of the 92 workmen was illegal and void as it was in breach of section 25F inasmuch as no notice thereof was given to the appropriate Government, and (4) that the company being under the management of the Union Government, the appropriate Government in regard to the dispute was the Central Government and not the State Government and consequently the impugn....
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....s having raised an industrial dispute regarding retrenchment did not in fact contain or raise any such question. The Division Bench held that the said letter raised only the question of revision of wage-structure and other demands but not the question of retrenchment. The letter of July 29, 1963, of the conciliation officer to the company relied on by the company also referred to the demands contained in the said letter of April 5, 1963, namely, the revision of wage-structure, dearness allowance, promotion and other matters, but not the question of the company's right of retrenchment. The Division Bench therefore held that there was nothing on record to show that retrenchment was the subject-matter of any conciliation before the conciliation officer and therefore any agreement conferring on the company the right to retrench so long as the said earlier settlements were not terminated was invalid in spite of the conciliation officer having given this assent to and affixed his signature on it. The learned judges, however, held that the company being one registered under the Companies Act and not having any statutory duty or function to perform was not one against which a writ petition....
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....court has never exercised a general power " said Bruce J. in R. v. Lewisham Union [1897] 1 QB 498, 501" to enforce the performance of their statutory duties by public bodies on the application of anybody who chooses to apply for a mandamus. It has always required that the applicant for a mandamus should have a legal specific right to enforce the performance of those duties". Therefore, the condition precedent for the issue of mandamus is that there is in one claiming it a legal right to the performance of a legal duty by one against whom it is sought. An order of mandamus is, in form, a command directed to a person, corporation or an inferior tribunal, requiring him or them to do a particular thing therein specified which appertains to his or their office and is in the nature of a public duty. It is, however, not necessary that the person or the authority on whom the statutory duty is imposed need be a public official or an official body. A mandamus can issue, for instance, to an official of a society to compel him to carry out the terms of the statute under or by which the society is constituted or governed and also to companies or corporations to carry out duties placed on them b....
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....District Council [1961] 1 QB 366). It is, therefore, fairly clear that such a declaration can be issued against a person or an authority or a corporation where the impugned act is in violation of or contrary to a statute under which it is set up or governed or a public duty or responsibility imposed on such person, authority or body by such a statute. The High Court, however, relied on two decisions of this court as justifying it t o issue the said declaration. The two decisions are Bidi, Bidi Leaves and Tobacco Merchants' Association v. State of Bombay [1962] Supp. 1 SCR C81 ; AIR 1962 SC 486. and A. B. Abdulkadir v. State of Kerala [1962] Supp. 2 SCR 741; AIR 1962' SC 922. But neither of these two decisions is a parallel case which could be relied on. In the first case, the declaration was granted not against a company, as in the present case, but against the State Government and the declaration was as regards the invalidity of certain clauses of a notification issued by the Government in pursuance of power under section 5 of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, on the ground that the said clauses were beyond the purview of that section. In the second case also, certain rules made und....