Judgment :- 1. This writ petition is by a trade union by name the Estate Staffs' union of South India represented by its General Secretary and Secretary of its Kerala Branch who figure as petitioners 1 and 2 in this O.P. The first respondent is an Association of Planters in South India by name the United Planters' Association of South India (UPASI) represented by its Secretary. The second respondent is the Kerala Branch of the UPASI. Respondents 3 and 4 are also trade unions of Plantation Staff in South India and the 5th respondent is the Labour Commissioner and the Conciliation Officer for settlement of disputes between the Management and the Trade Unions referred to above. 2. There were long term settlements between the plantation staff and the Association of Planters. The last of the series expired in March 1986. Ext. P1 dated 1-3-1984 is the proceedings of the 5th respondent the Labour Commissioner by which he bad countersigned the bi-partite settlement between the petitioner union and the employers' association as a conciliation settlement under S.12 (3) of the Industrial Disputes Act. Ext. PI shows that respondents 3 and 4 the rival trade unions opposed the prayer for converting the bipartite settlement into a conciliation settlement on the ground that the petitioner union does not represent the majority of workers of the Plantation Industry in South India and the bipartite settlement cannot be made binding on the workers who are members of the rival trade unions. The Labour Commissioner by Ext. Pi proceedings found that the petitioner trade union represents the majority of staff in the Plantation Industry in South India, the settlement was fair and reasonable and should therefore be accepted as a conciliation settlement binding on all workers represented by the different trade unions who are all parties to the conciliation proceedings. 3. After the expiry of the term of the conciliation settlement effected is 1984 the different trade unions representing the staff of the Plantation Industry in South India submitted a charter of demands in August 1986. and during the course of conciliation proceedings, the petitioner union entered into a bipartite settlement with the management on 15-12-1986. The petitioner union by Ext. After the expiry of the term of the conciliation settlement effected is 1984 the different trade unions representing the staff of the Plantation Industry in South India submitted a charter of demands in August 1986. and during the course of conciliation proceedings, the petitioner union entered into a bipartite settlement with the management on 15-12-1986. The petitioner union by Ext. P2 letter addressed to the 5th respondent the State Conciliation Officer required the bipartite settlement to be counter signed by him and made a conciliation settlement binding on the entire staff of the Plantation Industry in South India represented by the different trade unions. It is the petitioner's cage that the petitioner union represents the majority of the staff in the Plantation Industry in South India excluding the staff in the Government owned Plantation Corporation and the bipartite settlement arrived at during the course of conciliation proceedings should be accepted as a conciliation settlement. It was brought to the notice of the 5th respondent that the bipartite settlement had been accepted as a conciliation settlement in regard to the staff in the Plantation Industry in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka by the respective conciliation officers on the basis that the petitioner union represents the majority of the staff. The earlier bipartite settlement accepted as a conciliation settlement evidenced by Ext. P1 was also between the petitioner union and the Association of Planters in South India excluding the public sector plantations. The 5tb respondent the Conciliation Officer has rejected the petitioners' prayer to counter sign the bipartite settlement as conciliation settlement under S.12(3) of the Act as per bis proceedings Ext. P4 dated 22-4-1987. The petitioners seek to quash Ext. P4 and to direct the 5th respondent the State Conciliation Officer to countersign the bipartite agreement dated 15-12-1986 produced along with Ext. P2 as a conciliation settlement under S.12 (3) of the Act. 4. The 5th respondent has found that the Association of Planters of Kerala is an amorphous group and a bipartite settlement with such a group cannot be accepted as a conciliation settlement binding on all the staff of the Plantation Industry in Kerala. Membership of the Planters' Association is a fluctuating factor and a long term conciliation settlement cannot be thought of with such a fluctuating body. Membership of the Planters' Association is a fluctuating factor and a long term conciliation settlement cannot be thought of with such a fluctuating body. It was also found that in the Plantation Industry taken as a whole in Kerala excluding the public sector plantations the petitioner union represents the majority of the Staff. There are, however, plantations in the private sector where the petitioner union does not have the majority of staff as its members. It is for these reasons that the 5th respondent declined to accept the bipartite settlement as a conciliation settlement and in the view that be took declined to consider the question whether the settlement is fair and reasonable to the entire staff in the industry. 5. The expression conciliation proceedings is defined in S.2 (e) of the Industrial Disputes Act to mean any proceeding held by a conciliation Officer or Board under the Act. Industry is defined in S.2 0) of the Act to mean any systematic activity carried on by co-operation between an employer and his workmen for the production, supply or distribution of goods or services with a view to satisfy human wants or wishes. Sub-section(1) of S.12 provides for conciliation proceedings by the Conciliation Officer where an industrial dispute exists or is apprehended. Sub-section (2) enjoins the Conciliation Officer to investigate the dispute and all matters connected therewith and to do all such things as he thinks fit for the purpose of indicating the parties to come to a fair and amicable settlement of the dispute. If a settlement is arrived at in the course of conciliation proceedings the Conciliation Officer is required under sub-section (3) to send a report thereof to the appropriate Government or an officer authorised in that behalf by the Government together with a memorandum of the settlement signed by the parties to the dispute. Sub-section (1) of S.18 provides that a settlement arrived at by agreement, between the employer and workmen otherwise than in the course of conciliation proceedings shall be binding on the parties to the agreement. Sub-section (1) of S.18 provides that a settlement arrived at by agreement, between the employer and workmen otherwise than in the course of conciliation proceedings shall be binding on the parties to the agreement. A settlement arrived at in the course of conciliation proceedings under the Act is under sub-section (3) made binding on all parties to industrial dispute, all other parties summoned to appear in the proceedings as parties to the dispute, the heirs, successors or assigns of the employer and all persons employed in the establishment or part of the establishment, as the case may be, to which the dispute relates on the date of the dispute, and all persons who subsequently become employed in that establishment or part thereof. 6. The Industrial Disputes Act was passed in 1947 with the object of bringing into existence a machinery for investigation and settlement of industrial disputes in accordance with the decision of the International Labour Organisation. The Act provides for a machinery for collective bargaining. The object of industrial adjudication as observed by the Supreme Court in C.M C.H. Employees Union v. C.M. College, Vellore Assocn. (AIR 1988 SC 37) "has, therefore, been to be a countervailing force to counteract the inequalities of bargaining power which is inherent in the employment relationship". The following passage from the Law of Industrial Dispute by O.P. Malhotra, was quoted with approval by the Supreme Court in the decision referred to above. "The law governing industrial relations is one of the vitally important branches of the law-the legal system on which depends the social and economic security of a very large majority. "The parties to the industrial disputes present an infinite permutations of attitudes" on, economies, politics and human relations. General consensus on the methods of resolving them is beyond reach. The core of modern industrial law. therefore, consists of the problems dealing with conflict arising between the industrial employers and their employees relating to employment and social security The study of industrial law. therefore, necessarily concerns itself with the struggle of industrial workmen for security, It is the security of job, the minimum standard of living, of his future and that of his children and conversely the fear of insecurity which bedevil the worker, In other words, security is the keystone in dealing with the industrial relations between the industrial employers and their workers. The industrial worker, therefore, is the 'focal point' of any legal enquiry in the industrial relations. In the words of Prof. Forkosch, "the sociologist may see the worker as a human being caught in congeries of frustrations, complexes and urges-it mind that cannot cope with the baffling contradictions of the modern society". "There is", therefore, as Prof. Otto Kahn-Freund points out "everywhere a constant need for finding a judicium finium regundorum between collective bargaining and legislation of all kinds as instruments for the regulation of conditions of employment-wages and hours' holidays and pensions, health, safety and welfare, and even, increasingly, social security"-(See O.P. Malhotra: The Law of Industrial Disputes, Fourth Edn., Vol. I, (1985)-Introduction-page XX)". 7. As observed by the Supreme Court in Assam Chap. Karmachari Sangha v. Dimakuchi Tea Estate (1958 (1) LLJ. 500) at page 510: "It is the community of interest of the class as a whole class of employers or class of workmen-which furnishes the real nexus between the dispute and the parties to the dispute". The Supreme Court in the aforesaid decision quoted the following passage from the judgment of Issacs, J. in the Australian case of George Hudson Ltd. v. Australian Timber Workers' Union (32 CLR, 413 at 441): "The very nature of an 'industrial dispute' as distinguished from an individual dispute, is to obtain new industrial conditions, not merely for the specific individuals then working from the specific individuals then employing them, and not for the movement only, but for the class of employees from the class of employers ....It is a battle by the claimants, not for themselves alone" The question whether an industrial dispute can be raised by a Trade Union of Workers other than those of the concerned establishment at a time prior to the introduction of S.2-A of the Act came up for consideration before the Supreme Court m Workmen v. Dharampal Premchand (Saughandhi) (1965 (1) LLJ. 668). The Supreme Court observed at page 673: "It is well-known that in dealing with industrial disputes, industrial adjudication is generally reluctant to lay down any hard and fast rule or adopt any test of general or universal application. 668). The Supreme Court observed at page 673: "It is well-known that in dealing with industrial disputes, industrial adjudication is generally reluctant to lay down any hard and fast rule or adopt any test of general or universal application. The approach of industrial adjudication in dealing with industrial dispute has necessarily to be pragmatic, and the tests which it applies and the consideration on which it relies would vary from case to case and would not admit of any rigid or inflexible formula. There is no doubt that the limitations introduced by the decisions of this court in interpreting the effect of the definition prescribed by S.2 (k) of the Act were based on such pragmatic consideration. It may also be conceded that if the dismissal of an individual employee working in an establishment in Delhi is taken up by the union of workmen in a place away from Delhi, that would clearly not make the dispute an industrial dispute. S.36 of the Act which deals with the representation of parties, incidentally suggests that the union which can raise an individual dispute as to a dismissal validly should be a union of the same industry. Generally, it is the union of workmen working in the same establishment which has passed the impugned order of dismissal. But in a given case, it is conceivable that the workmen of an an establishment have no union of their own and some or all of them join the union of another establishment belonging to the same industry. In such a case, if the said union takes up the cause of the workmen working in an establishment which has no union of its own, it would be unreasonable to bold that the dispute does not become an industrial dispute, because the union which has sponsored it is not the union exclusively of the workmen working in the establishment concerned. In every case where industrial adjudication has to decide whether a reference in regard to the dismissal of an industrial employee is validly made or not, it would always be necessary to enquire whether the union which has sponsored the case can fairly claim a representative character in such a way that its support to the cause would make the dispute an industrial dispute. "Industry" has been defined by S 2 0) of the Act and it seems to us that in some cases the union of workmen working in one industry may be competent to raise a dispute about the wrongful dismissal of an employee engaged in an establishment belonging to the same industry where workmen in such an establishment have no union of their own, and an appreciate number of such workmen had joined such other union before their dismissal. In fact, the object of trade union movement is to encourage the formation of larger and bigger unions on healthy and proper trade union lines, and this object would be frustrated if industrial adjudication were to adopt the rigid rule that before any dispute about wrongful dismissal can be validly referred under S.10(1) of the Act, it should receive the support of the union consisting exclusively of the workmen working in the establishment concerned". 8. The bipartite settlements between the petitioner union and the second respondent the Association of Planters of Kerala had been accepted as conciliation settlements in the past until 1984. The Association represents the management of the Plantation Industry. There is nothing wrong in accepting the bipartite settlement arrived at during the conciliation proceedings as a conciliation settlement provided the petitioner union represents the majority of the staff of the industry represented by the second respondent Association. The Association does not take in the public sector Plantation Corporation and in the present case neither the public sector plantations nor the workmen employed therein are parties to the conciliation proceedings The mere fact that the industry takes in also the public sector Plantations does not preclude the bipartite settlement from being converted into a conciliation settlement under S.12(3) of the Act if the other requisite conditions are satisfied. A Division Bench of this Court in Workmen of Pierce Leslie & Co. v. Labour Commissioner (AIR 1967 Kerala 245) has held that an agreement arrived at during the conciliation proceedings will have an extended operation beyond the parties to the settlement, only if the settlement is fair and reasonable and those others not parties had also an opportunity to participate in the conciliation proceedings. The question whether the conciliation settlement in the present case is fair and reasonable is left undecided by the 5th respondent. 9. It is clear from the proceedings Ext. The question whether the conciliation settlement in the present case is fair and reasonable is left undecided by the 5th respondent. 9. It is clear from the proceedings Ext. P1 that the petitioner union at that point of time represented the majority of the staff in the industry. Whether the union continues to represent the majority of the staff is also a matter that requires consideration. 10. For the aforesaid reasons I quash Ext. P4 and direct the 5th respondent to consider and pass fresh orders in the light of the observations and directions contained in this judgment. 11. The 5th respondent will pass fresh orders within three months from the date of receipt of a copy of this judgment by him. The Original Petition is allowed as indicated above. There will be no order as to costs.