Unions welcome HC ruling on labour courts

VADODARA, NOV 25: The Trade Union movement has received a shot in the arm with the Gujarat High Court's recent ruling on the orders passed...

VADODARA, NOV 25: The Trade Union movement has received a shot in the arm with the Gujarat High Court’s recent ruling on the orders passed by labour courts. Now industry owners can be dragged to the High Court under the Contempt of Courts Act for breach of orders passed by the labour judiciary.

Labour courts in the state were virtually rendered ineffective after 1995, as their orders were not implemented by several managements, knowing well that the High Court won’t entertain contempt cases. Their audacity stemmed from a judgement in which the Supreme Court had, in Alahar Cooperative Credit Services Society Vs Sham Lal case, observed that “the Labour Court was not a court subordinate to the High Court in the sense that the Contempt of Courts Act makes provision requiring the High Court to deal with contempt of its subordinate courts.”

According to Vadodara Kamdar Union, before the 1995 judgement, 78 per cent of the orders passed by Labour Courts were implemented. Once the judgement was out, the High Court started rejecting contempt cases filed by labour courts.

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The trade unions tried their best to get their point of view across and called on the state government and ministers to make the necessary amendments to the law on the lines of Maharashtra and other states in the country.

The state government held out assurances, but did not amend the law, VKU alleged. Frustrated, the unions asked the government to scrap the labour judicial machinery since it served no purpose. They argued that managements were getting emboldened by the ineffective labour judiciary and often violated laws.

However, the November 7 judgement, delivered by the division bench of Justices R K Abhichandani and Kundan Singh, says that labour courts will be regarded as `courts’, restoring the labour judiciary the status it enjoyed before 1995.

The trade unions have naturally welcomed the order. Vadodara Kamdar Union and Jyoti Karmachari Mandal had around 80 pending cases of violation of labour court orders. VKU said it had already started issuing notices to managements and some of them had responded by offering an out-of-court settlement.

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According to Rohit Prajapati and Thakorbhai Shah of VKU, the unions won’t remain content with the High Court judgement. They would pressurise the state government to make the necessary legal amendments to ensure that unscrupulous managements abided by the verdicts of labour courts.

Rajukumar Singh of the Gujarat Engineering and General Kamdar Union said there were more than 700 cases of non-compliance with labour courts’ order in the state, all of which can now be tried by the High Court for contempt.