CASE COMMENT
Rangaswami And Anr. vs Registrar Of Trade Unions And Anr. on 4 November, 1960
Equivalent citations:
AIR 1962 Mad 231, (1961) ILLJ 599 Mad, (1961) 2 MLJ 554
Bench: R Iyer
PETITIONER:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Rangaswami and Anr.
RESPONDENT:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Registrar of trade unions
Statutes
The legal principles of law involved
in this case
1. The Trade Union Act 1926
2. The Industrial Disputes Act 1927
3. The Constitution of India
ISSUE
Whether the union of employees was
entitled to get itself registered under
the trade unions Act 1926?
FACTS
A number of persons were employed at
Madras Raj Bhawan in various capacities. There were two categories of employees
(a) Those whose services were more or
less of a domestic nature (102)
(b) Those who formed part of work charge
establishment consisting of maistries
and gardeners
The employees formed themselves into
a union and seven of them applied to the registrar of Trade unions, Madras for
registration of their union as a trade union under the trade union act, 1926
The Registrar refused to register the
union on the ground that, its members were not connected with a trade or
industry or business of the employer. And the employees could not be held to be
workmen within the meaning of the act
CONTENTION TO THE PETITIONER
As the Comptroller directs the sale
of unserviceable articles as well as surplus produce of the gardens in the Raj
Bhawan, the activity of the employer should be held to partake the character of
a trade or business as well
The term “ workmen’ under the act
would include one employed in an industry nor is the term “industry’ in the act
JUDGEMENT
The Madras High Court held that the
order of the Registrar of trade unions rejecting the application was correct
The court said that although the
definition of the term ‘workmen’ in section 2 (g) prima facie indicates that it
was intended only for interpreting the term “trade dispute” and even after
assuming that the definition could be used for interpreting the term “trade
union” in section 2 ( h) it is obvious that the industry should be one as would
amount to a trade or bussines I,e … a commercial undertaking. The authorities
of the Raj Bhawan could not be held to be employers engaged with the workmen in
an undertaking within the meaning of the term ‘ industry’ in the industrial
disputes act as the services rendered by the employers were purely of a
personal nature
Further, the court said that the
occasional sales of unserviceable articles and garden products are incidents of
the ordinary administration of Government property. They are done in accordance
with certain rules framed by the Government. They would not amount to trade or
business
2(g) ‘trade disputes” means any
disputes between employers and workmen or between workmen and workmen or
between employers and employers which is connected with the employment or non-
employment or the terms of employment of the conditions of labour, of any
person and workmen means all person employed in trade or industry whether or
not in the employment of the employer with whom the trade dispute arises and
2(h) trade union means any combination , whether temporary or permanent, formed
primarily for the purpose of regulating the relations between workmen and
employers or between workmen and employers or for imposing restrictive
conditions on the conduct of any trade or business and includes any federation
of two or more trade unions.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
1. The trade union In general , are
organization that are formed to
facilitate improvement and protect the
conditions and interest of workers through collective mode of action or ideology. forming
association has become part of the trend
to safeguard the interest of workers / association which further
facilitate their right under Article 19(1) (c) which provides the
right to every citizen of India to form associations or unions. However But the multiplicity of Trade Unions than giving end result of common good often rather
encourages undesirable political havoc across the country
2. The mode of agitation and nature of
protest that trade union chose to adopt are more or less similar as that of mini revolution in the form of strikes and boycott which
further resulted in huge loss of the factory and production
3. The particular association had either
no or limited rights either under the Trade Union Act or the Industrial Dispute
Act and thus is not liable to obtain any or no recognition from employers ,
thus is not immune from any kind of
contractual, criminal, and civil proceedings.
This
case comment is given by Rebecca Zovi, student of LLB, 4th sem from
Law centre II, Delhi University
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