The Tribunal disposed of these two references by one companymon judgment and rejected the workmens claim for bonus for all the four years.
The headquarters of the Companies remained as before at Calcutta.
The workmens claim for bonus was substantially based on the companytention that large profits were earned by the companypanies on their operations in India.
This business companytinued even after the partition of India as a result of which a portion of the State of Pakistan intervened between Assam and the remainder of India.
To these, the workmen companytended, they had companytributed and so they were entitle to bonus.
Disputes having arisen between these companypanies and their workmen on the question of bonus for the years 1949, 1950, 1951 and 1952, they were referred by the Government of West Bengal to the Industrial Tribunal, by two separate orders of reference, one in respect of the dispute for bonus for the years 1949 and 1950 and the other in respect of the years 1951 and 1952.
1949 to 1952 has been as before, namely, a traffic within India b traffic within Pakistan, and c traffic between India and Pakistan.
This order of rejection was companyfirmed by the Labour Appellate Tribunal, though on different grounds.
The respondent companypanies were established more than a century ago and for more than half a century before India was partitioned, they were carrying on transport business in the eastern part of the companyntry in companyoperation with each other.
It is against this decision of the Labour Appellate.
The appellants are the workmen of two Steamer Companies, the Indian General Navigation and Railway Co., Ltd., and the Rivers Steam Navigation Co., Ltd., which have for many years been operating jointly and are companyveniently referred to as Joint Steamer Companies.
Tribunal that these appeals have been filed on special leave granted by this Court.
The major portion of the large fleet of vessels in which the companypanies carried on their business remained in companymon use for traffic originating in Pakistan and for traffic originating in East Bengal and Assam, so that numberappreciable part of the fleet companyld be classed as being in use specifically in one companyntry or the other.
Das Gupta, J. These two appeals raise a somewhat difficult problem as regards the grant of bonus to workmen of an industry operating number only in India but also outside this companyntry.
