AI Drafter 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2006 (9) TMI 587
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....rged with Appellant, had such a scheme. Respondents herein were deposit collectors in Pygmy Deposit Scheme floated by the said Bank. Under the agreement, they were entitled to commission at the rate of 3.5% of the collections made by them. Those Pygmy deposit collectors working in New Bank of India since 1979 had been allowed to continue with Appellant No. 1 upon their amalgamation in 1993. The system of paying commission at the rate of 3.5% of the amount collected by them continued. 4. An industrial dispute was raised by such deposit collectors of various banks pursuant whereto the Government of India by a notification on 3.10.1980 referred the following dispute for adjudication before the Industrial Tribunal, Hyderabad: Whether the demand of the Commission Agents or as the case may be Deposit Collectors employed in the Banks listed in Annexure that they are entitled to the pay scale and other service conditions admissible to regular clerical employees of these banks is justified? If not to what relief the workers concerned entitled to and from which date? 5. Appellant Bank along with some other nationalised Banks was also parties to the said reference. The Associat....
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....and by way of a package. He submitted that earlier commission was being paid at a rate of 3.5 per cent by most of the banks. He pointed out that now, over and above the sum of Rs. 7500, the commission had been reduced to 2 per cent. He submitted that to that extent Deposit Collectors were losing, but as this was part of the package as given by the Tribunal it was being accepted by the Deposit Collectors. He submitted that the directions given by the Tribunal were fair and just and absolutely right. He submitted that the order of the High Court was correct and this Court should not interfere. This Court also noticed the submissions made on behalf of the Workmen that deposit collectors had been working for 20 to 25 years and that there was nothing wrong if they were either absorbed in the banks or given regular pay scales, allowances and other service conditions as applicable to other employees of the banks. This Court dismissed the appeal preferred by Indian Banks Association stating: We also see no substance in the contention that these Schemes are unremunerative. The banks have introduced these Schemes because they want to encourage the common man to make small and ....
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....n terms of Section 18(3)(d) of the Industrial Disputes Act, direction by the High Court to comply with the principles of natural justice was wholly unwarranted. It was further submitted that in a case of recovery of the amount in terms of an award, the writ court could not have exercised its discretionary jurisdiction. Mr. Gopal Mahajan, learned Counsel appearing on behalf of Respondents, on the other hand, would submit that that the writ petitioners being not parties to the said award, the award was not binding upon them. Had an opportunity been given to them, they could have shown that Appellant cannot take a different stand vis-a-vis other nationalized banks. 11. The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 was enacted inter alia for settlement of industrial disputes and for certain other purposes. Maintenance of industrial peace by way of settlement of disputes is one of the objects of the said legislation. Section 18 of the Industrial Disputes Act specifies the persons on whom settlements and awards are binding. Sub-section (3) of Section 18 thereof provides as under: (3) A settlement arrived at in the course of conciliation proceedings under this Act or an arbitration awa....
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.... Its application would be limited to a situation where the factual position or legal implication arising thereunder is disputed and not where it is not in dispute or cannot be disputed. If only one conclusion is possible, a writ would not issue only because there was a violation of the principle of natural justice. 13. In M.C. Mehta v. Union of India and Ors. [1999]3SCR1173 , the law is stated in the following terms: ... More recently Lord Bingham has deprecated the "useless formality" theory in R. v. Chief Constable of the Thames Valley Police Forces, ex p Cotton by giving six reasons. (See also his article "Should Public Law Remedies be Discretionary?" 1991 PL, p. 64.) A detailed and emphatic criticism of the "useless formality theory" has been made much earlier in "Natural Justice, Substance or Shadow" by Prof. D.H. Clark of Canada (see 1975 PL, pp. 27-63) contending that Malloch and Glynn6 were wrongly decided. Foulkes (Administrative Law, 8th Edn., 1996, p. 323), Craig (Administrative Law, 3rd Edn., p. 596) and others say that the court cannot prejudge what is to be decided by the decision-making authority, de Smith (5th Edn., 1994, paras 10.031 to 10.036) says cou....