Dear friends,
With due respect to M/s Subba Rao and V.P.K, just I wish to explain why I differ from their views posted in this thread regarding the alleged undue favour shown to the workmen generally by Labour Courts.First and foremost, it is not true.Basically an industrial dispute before a Labour Court is in no way different from a civil litigation pending before any other adjudicatory forum.Therefore, the success of the case favouring the claimant or the respondent, rests on so many factors like the sustainability of the claim, the antecedent events that lead to the cause of action leading to the litigation, the proportionality of the punishment to the misconduct, the effectiveness of the arguments advanced before the Court, the previous judicial pronouncements in similar type of cases etc,.In my own experience as a conciliation officer under the Industrial Disputes Act,1947, I had the ample opportunity to peruse disciplinary files of dismissed workmen, perspicaciously analyze the the stands taken by the employers to take the extreme action and to thoroughly observe the extent of compliance of the provisions of the Acts and Rules applicable.I am very sorry that in a vast majority of the cases in which the workmen got favourable awards later, the employers had misled themselves either by their vindictive attitude or by the haphazard way of handling disciplinary proceedings apart from willful non observance of Acts and Rules.We can not simply brush aside the ground reality of workmen not even of private enterprises but of large public sector undertakings lamenting as casual workmen for 25 years or more though the Supreme Court in its wisdom has been repeatedly advising that the State should endeavour to be a 'model employer'.Who is to be blamed for this? Not individuals but the mind-set corroded with exploitative tendencies and callousness towards the sufferings of the people in the lower rung.So it is my personal opinion that before inflicting a punishment on a workman or denying a right or a concession to the workmen the employer should guide himself with prudence and not accentuated by personal motives.That's why in our official circle it is said in lighter vein " A worst settlement is better than the best award!"