Labour Law Case: Nepal Battery Company, Balaju Industrial Estate Pvt. Ltd vs. Ministry of Labour, NKP 2059 B.S, No. 11/12, P. 726.
Case: Writ of Certiorari
Plaintiff/Applicant: Nepal Battery Company on behalf of General Manager Ashesh Dutt
Defendant/Respondent: Ministry of Labour
This case is related to the status and demands of those workers who are not allowed to go on strike and the legal validity of the decision of the Tribunals.
Facts of the Case:
Nepal Battery Company is an enterprise which was formed in collaboration with India’s Eveready Industries Ltd. along with Nepali investors. It dealt with producing and exporting dry-cell batteries. The workers submitted 14 points demands to the management to review over the salaries and other facilities but the demands were rejected by the management.
After the failure to resolve the disputes between the management and the workers, the workers submitted an application to the Labour office and the Office organized a series of table talk between the management and workers but failed to resolve the disputes.
Finally both parties agreed to establish a single bench tribunal addressing Kashi Raj Dahal as the chairperson of the Tribunal and also published about it in the Gorkhapatra daily. The Tribunal gave its decision in favor of the workers. Then the Enterprise moved to the Supreme Court with a writ petition against the decision of the Tribunal. It claimed that Decision taken in accordance with Section 74(1) is contradictory with Section 2(c), 2(e), 2(f) (Defn. of Employee, Manager and Proprietor respectively) of Labor Act 2048. The one-member Tribunal does not have jurisdiction over the issue. (Section 78) The decision of the Tribunal is one-sided, illegal and breaches the basic norms of the labor law, thus deserves to be nullified/quashed.
Legal Issues:
- Why the order of writ of certiorari should not be issued as per the demand of the petitioner?
Different Courts Decision:
Tribunal:
The Tribunal formed gave its decision in the favor of the workers.
Supreme Court:
The Supreme Court decided the case in favor of the workers in the following ground and quashed the writ petition of the enterprise: The enterprise failed to justify how those workers are not covered by the Section 78 of the Labor Law. In the beginning both parties organized a series of table talk under the Labor Office and the status of the workers never became an issue. In minute of the discussion, it was observed that the both parties agreed to form a Tribunal as per Section 78(3). Still the enterprise did not talk about the status of those workers. The claim was made only after the verdict of the Tribunal that came against the Enterprise. Thus, the decision made by the Tribunal was lawful and the writ deserves to be dismissed.
