District Magistrate and Collector, Aligarh v. Gopal Prasad Saksena
1962-08-16
B.MUKERJI, J.N.TAKRU
body1962
DigiLaw.ai
JUDGMENT B. Mukerji, J. - This is a special appeal arising out of a decision made by a learned Single Judge of this Court in respect of a petition filed by the respondent Gopal Prasad Saksena. In the petition prayer was made for a writ of mandamus commanding the respondent not to take any proceedings against the petitioner to realise a certain amount of money as arrears of land revenue or in any other manner. 2. The petitioner also prayed for a writ of certiorari to quash an order dated the 22nd July 1957, whereby realisation of certain sums of money was to be made as arrears of land revenue. 3. It appears that the order of 22nd July 1957 was passed by the Labour Commissioner of Kanpur requesting the Collector of Aligarh to effect certain recoveries from the petitioner in respect of sums which were payable to certain employees who had raised an Industrial dispute. In view of that Industrial dispute, action was taken by the Adjudicator and Regional Conciliation Officer, Agra who made an award on the 16th February 1956 and by that award he ordered that Hari Ram and Todi Ram were to be reinstated to their old jobs, given continuity of service and were also to be paid their full wages for the period they remained unemployed, together with their "deducted wages" which they had not received for the month of February etc. The employer went up in appeal to the Labour Appellate Tribunal, Lucknow Bench, which dismissed their appeal on the 20th of June 1956. 4. The two employees were reinstated in accordance with the award. On the 31st of July 1956 a notice was issued to the employer petitioner to pay the arrears of salary which was due to his employees. A sum of Rs. 763-11-0 had to be paid to Todi Ram and Rs. 706 had to be paid to Hari Ram. These payments not having been made, the employees asked for coercive measures to be taken against their employer, the petitioner. The validity of the coercive proceedings which were taken was challenged by the writ petition out of which this appeal has arisen and three points fell for determination before the learned Single Judge. 1. That the recovery certificate was for an amount which was not in fact due. 2.
The validity of the coercive proceedings which were taken was challenged by the writ petition out of which this appeal has arisen and three points fell for determination before the learned Single Judge. 1. That the recovery certificate was for an amount which was not in fact due. 2. That the recovery certificate could be issued only by the State Government or by a person authorised in this behalf by the State Government and the Labour Commissioner had not been so authorised to issue the recovery certificate. 3. That the State Government had to be satisfied before the certificate could be issued and it was not competent for the State Government to. delegate to the Labour Commissioner the duty of being satisfied as required by law. 5. The learned Single Judge did not determine the first question nor did he specifically determine the third question. He decided the Second question and came to the conclusion that there being a conflict between the Hindi notification and the English notification in regard to delegation of powers, the Hindi notification was to prevail under which there was no clear delegation to the Labour Commissioner to issue the recovery certificate, with the result that the learned Single Judge allowed the petition and directed the necessary writ to issue. 6. In the special appeal the first question we have to determine is whether the learned Single Judge's view that in the case of a conflict between the English version of a notification and the Hindi version of the notification was it the Hindi version that prevailed or the English version. This question is beyond the frail of controversy any more. So far as this court is concerned we have now a Full Bench which has pronounced upon this question. This case is reported in Jaswant Sugar Mills Ltd. v. The Presiding Officer, Industrial Tribunal, AIR 1962 Allahabad 240 = 1961 A.L.J. 900. The English version in accordance with the view of the Full Bench would be the authoritative version and would prevail over the Hindi version. Therefore, there would in this case be no want of authority for the Labour Commissioner to issue the necessary certificate for the recovery of the sums due to the two employees Todi Ram and Hari Ram. 7. We now have to consider the two other points which were raised but were not specifically decided by the learned Single Judge.
Therefore, there would in this case be no want of authority for the Labour Commissioner to issue the necessary certificate for the recovery of the sums due to the two employees Todi Ram and Hari Ram. 7. We now have to consider the two other points which were raised but were not specifically decided by the learned Single Judge. The first point concerned a question of fact and we arc not inclined to go into that question particularly when that question was not a simple question of fact, but involved going into and scrutinising a mass of evidence. 8. The next question namely whether the recovery certificate could be issued only by the State Government and that there could be no delegation in respect of this "power" conferred on the State Government under Sec. 6-H of the U.P. Industrial Disputes Act even though there was a general power of delegation provided for under Sec. 11-A of the Act. 9. Under Sec. 6-H the State Government before it could issue a certificate for the recovery of money due to some one under an award had to have satisfaction that such money was in fact due. The issue of a certificate of recovery was more or less dependent upon the satisfaction in regard to the amount due for which a certificate was to be issued; it was not a mere matter of routine. It was in essence one single power exercisable by the State Government under the authority conferred on it by the section. The question that one has to determine now is whether the State Government could delegate the power which had been conferred upon it by Sec. 6-H to the Labour Commissioner a delegation which the State Government has in the instant case made by Notification No. 2723 (ST) XXXV1-A150 (ST)-57, dated the 20th May 1957. The power of delegation was conferred on the State Government under the provisions of Sec. 11-A of the Act.
The power of delegation was conferred on the State Government under the provisions of Sec. 11-A of the Act. This section reads as follows :- "The State Government may by notification in the official gazette, direct that any power exercisable by it under this Act or Rules made there-under shall, in relation to such matters and subject to such conditions, if any, as may be specified in the direction, be exercisable also by such officer or authority subordinate to the State Government as may be specified in the notification." What is to be observed carefully is that the right of delegation is exercisable in respect of a `power exercisable' by the State Government; the other thing that has to be noticed is that the delegation which is provided for by Sec. 11-A is a sort of concurrent exercise of power by the delegator as also the delegatee. The question which we have, to determine is, first, what is the power which has been conferred on the State Government under Sec. 6-H. On the determination of this question would depend the answer to the other question, viz. whether the power could have been delegated under the provisions of Sec. 11-A quoted above. Under Sec. 6-H the relevant portions of which we have already noticed, suffice it here to say that the section empowers the State Government to issue a certificate for the recovery of the money due. That power to issue the certificate was certainly hedged in by a condition, namely that the power could only be exercised when there was a satisfaction the instant case we have already that a certain money was due. To us, noticed that the power to issue the therefore, it appears that the power certificate and if we could view the re-consisted in issuing the certificate and not that it was as though there were two powers unconnected; the power other power or as a duty, then was in a sense interdependent. 10. In this Court the question of the competence of the State Government to make a delegation of the power conferred on it under Sec. 6-H did not specifically come up for decision; we are informed by the learned counsel for the State.
10. In this Court the question of the competence of the State Government to make a delegation of the power conferred on it under Sec. 6-H did not specifically come up for decision; we are informed by the learned counsel for the State. Our attention was however, drawn to five single judge decisions of this Court, one reported and the others unreported, where the question of the right of the State Government to delegate the powers conferred on it under Sec. 4-A came up for decision. Except in the case of Brij Mohan v. Purshottam Das Chunni Lal Industries, Civil Misc. Writ No. 1266 of 1958 wherein James, J. came to the conclusion that there could be no delegation of the powers conferred on the State Government under Sec. 4-A of the Industrial Disputes Act, the other learned Judges held that such a delegation was possible. In one judgment the test for determining whether delegation was possible or not has been laid down by their Lordships of the Supreme Court in Hazrat Syed Shah v. Commissioner of Waqfs etc., (1961) A.I.R. S.C. 1095 where their Lordships observed as follows:- "Where powers and duties are interconnected and it is not possible to separate one from the other in such wise that power may be delegated while duties are retained and vice versa, the delegation of powers takes with it the duties." Their Lordships in the above mentioned case approved of the view expressed by Lord Denning in Mungoni v. Attorney-General of Northern Rhodesia, 1960 A.C. 336 - (1960) 1 All. E. R. 446. The test which we have to apply, therefore, is a test, if we may put it that way, one of "severability". In the instant case we have already noticed that the power to issue the certificate and if we could view the required satisfaction of the State Government, under Sec. 6-H as either another power or as a duty, then the two were so interconnected so interdependent as not to be amenable to a separation in the sense that one separated unit of the power could be exercised independently and separately from the other unit of power. An argument was advanced that where there was duty connected with the power exercisable then in such a case there could be no delegation at all.
An argument was advanced that where there was duty connected with the power exercisable then in such a case there could be no delegation at all. This argument, in our view, was also met by the observations of their Lordships made in Hazrat Syed Shah's case, (1961) A.I.R. S.C. 1095. 11. For the reasons given above, therefore, we are of the opinion that the delegation which was made in this particular case under the notification referred to above was not an invalid delegation and therefore the certificate which had been issued by the Labour Commissioner, Kanpur could not be held to be without authority. In the result, we allow this special appeal and set aside Judge quashing the order of the Labour Commissioner issuing a certificate for recovery which was dated the 22nd of July 1957. Since no one has appeared to opposes this appeal, we make no order as to costs.