Both these petitions arise between same parties and raise practically identical questions. Therefore, they are being disposed of by this common order.
Both these petitions are under Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India challenging the impugned orders of the Labour Court. The respondents filed recovery applications before the Labour Court, Surat under section 33(C)(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (Act for short) against the petitioners. The petitioners by their application dated 17th April, 1996 raised preliminary objection that an employee cannot maintain an application for recovery against three different employers in the same application as there is no provision under the Act that one employee can maintain recovery application against different employers.
The Labour Court after hearing the parties passed the impugned orders whereby the application of the petitioners came to be rejected with cost of Rs.500/-.
The jurisdictional scope and ambit of the provisions of Article 226/227 of the Constitution is very much circumscribed. This Court is not sitting in appeal over the impugned order. In supervisory jurisdiction under Article 226/227 of the Constitution, the court is inclined to interfere when there is some illegality or jurisdictional error is pointed out. In the present case, the impugned order is only to the effect that the preliminary objection for separate decision about the maintainability of the recovery application is rejected. The view taken by the Labour Court cannot be said to be perverse, illegal or unjust. Therefore, this Court is not inclined to interfere with the impugned orders at this stage considering the fact that the point raised in the application on behalf of the petitioner is not yet decided.
In the result, both these petitions are rejected at the threshold.
23.9.96.(J.N.Bhatt, J.)