The Industrial Court upheld the objection and ordered that the companyplaint may be returned to the respondent for seeking relief before an appropriate forum.
The respondent is a trade union and represents workmen employed in the Bank.
It is in the banking business and is governed by the provisions of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 for short the BR Act .
In other words, the Division Bench held that for the purpose of deciding which is the appropriate government the expression Banking Company will have to be read, as it existed in BR Act of 1949 and that the subsequent amendments made vide Banking Regulation Act, 1965 had to be ignored.
Mainly aggrieved by transfer of eleven employees from one place to another, alleging it as an act of victimisation, the respondent filed a companyplaint against the Bank under Section 28 of the Maharashtra Recognition of Trade Unions and Prevention of Unfair Labour Practices Act, 1971 for short the MRTU PULP Act , along with an application for interim relief, before the Industrial Court at Mumbai.
Allowing the writ petition, the learned single Judge came to the companyclusion that for the appropriate Government to be the Central Government it was necessary that the Bank must be a Company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956, which requirement was missing in the present case.
While resisting the companyplaint, the Bank raised certain preliminary issues of jurisdiction and maintainability of the companyplaint under the MRTU PULP Act.
Being aggrieved, the Bank is before us by special leave.
Being aggrieved, the Bank filed a Letters Patent Appeal before the Division Bench.
Inter alia, observing that Section 2 bb of the ID Act is an instance of legislation by incorporation and number legislation by reference and, therefore, the amendments made in the BR Act after 1949 cannot be read into the ID Act, Division Bench came to the companyclusion that the appropriate Government in the present case would be the State Government.
The respondent questioned the validity of the said order by preferring a writ petition in the High Court.
The plea of the Bank was that as it was engaged in the business of banking and is a Banking Company as defined in Clause c of Section 5 of the BR Act, the appropriate government would be the Central Government and therefore, the provisions of the MRTU PULP Act, a State Act, were number applicable.
In relation to a Multi State Co operative Bank carrying on business in more than one State, which government Central or State, is the appropriate government for the purposes of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1946 for short the ID Act , is the short question for companysideration in this appeal?
Arising out of S.L.P. Civil No.8377 of 2005 K. JAIN, J. Leave granted.
As the Bank had a number of branches outside Maharashtra, subsequently, it got registered under the Multi State Co operative Societies Act, 1984.
The Appellant Bank hereinafter referred to as the Bank was originally registered under the Maharashtra State Co operative Societies Act, 1960.
