JUDGMENT M. C. Agarwal, J.
1. By this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner, an employer, challenges an order dated 30.12.1994, copy of which is Annexure-7 to the writ petition, whereby the Asstt. Labour Commissioner, Aligarh, declined to register a settlement for industrial dispute in terms of Section 6B of the U. P. Industrial Disputes Act. The petitioner also seeks a writ of mandamus directing the said respondent and the other respondents, who are workmen to register the alleged settlement.
2. I have heard the learned counsel for the petitioner Sri DInesh Dwivedi and Sri K. P. Agarwal. Senior Advocate for the respondents and also the learned standing counsel.
3. The petitioner's Industry named 'Prag Vanaspati Products' was afflicted with labour problems and it ultimately declared a lock-out from 30.11.1991. The State Government by its order dated 16.6.1992 prohibited the lock-out in the Company for a period of 180 days. The petitioner challenged the said order by means of a Writ Petition No. 21615 of 1992 which was allowed by this Court by order dated 11.11.1992. The prohibition order was quashed. The workmen approached the Hon'ble Supreme Court and by an order dated 14.5.1993. the Hon'ble Supreme Court required the State Government to indicate as to what steps it was going to take for the smooth functioning of the Mill. Thereupon the State Government made a reference to the Industrial Tribunal IV, Agra under Section 4K of the Act. The dispute referred was about the validity of the lock-out- On 5.5.1994 the Hon'ble Supreme Court stayed the operation of this Court's order dated 11.11.1992. Thereupon, the workmen wanted payment of their dues and the Dy. Labour Commissioner issued a recovery certificate under Section 3 of the U. P. Industrial Peace (Timely Payment of Wages) Act, 1978. The petitioner again approached this Court in Writ Petition No. 26694 of 1994 which is pending in this Court. On the petitioner's application for an Interim stay in that writ petition, it was directed to deposit a sum of Rs. 5 lacs within six weeks. The petitioner could not do so and moved an application for extension of time by six weeks. The Court desired that the petitioner should first deposit some amount to show its bona fides. In the meantime, the Workers Union respondent No. 2 allegedly entered into an agreement with the petitioner settling the disputes with regard to the payment of wages for the prohibition period. A copy of the agreement has been annexed to the writ petition as Annexure-2. It is claimed that after the above agreement was executed between the parties, the petitioner immediately made an application before this Court that the recovery proceedings be quashed inasmuch as they have become infructuous on account of the agreement, it is claimed that the respondents admitted the settlement of the dispute in their counter-affidavit filed in the aforesaid writ petition, a copy of the said affidavit has been annexed to the present writ petition as Annexure-3. On the petitioner's application in the aforesaid writ petition, this Court by an order dated 29.11.1994 directed the petitioner to deposit a sum of Rs. 5 lacs and also directed that the parties may proceed to get the agreement registered in the next 15 days and in case the deposit was not made, the recovery proceedings shall proceed after two weeks. The sum of Rs. 5 lacs is said to have been deposited on 3.12.1994 through a bank draft delivered to the Asstt. Labour Commissioner. The petitioner moved an application for the registration of the agreement by the respondent No. 1 which has been declined by the impugned order. The said order states that the workmen side denied the agreement and alleged that six copies of the alleged agreement do not bear their signature and only the rough draft had their signature. The worker side declined to sign the agreement in the presence of the Asstt. Labour Commissioner and, therefore, the respondent No. 1 declined to register the agreement. According to the learned counsel for the petitioner, the execution of the settlement had been admitted by the workmen in the earlier writ petition, referred to above, as is evident by the affidavit and, therefore, the respondent No. 1 should have registered the same and he should be directed to do so.
4. On behalf of the respondents workmen, it has been said that the petitioner has not filed a correct and full copy of the alleged agreement. A copy of the agreement that was arrived at between the parties has been annexed to the counter-affidavit as Annexure-CA 2. It is claimed that the employer's plea was that they were not aware of the State Government prohibiting the lock out and if the workmen produced a copy of the order, the wages of the workmen for the period of lock out would be distributed and it was in this back ground that the workmen had entered into an agreement but since this part of the agreement was not implemented and all possible efforts were made by the employer to wriggle out of the agreement, the workmen correctly took the position that they would not abide by the agreement and did not sign the same. On behalf of the respondent No. 1. It is stated that on the receipt of the application for registration of the settlement, both the parties were summoned and the Workers Union strictly (should be 'stiffly') opposed the agreement and filed objection to the same stating that the signatures of Bhagwan Swaroop Jalswal, Yashpal Gupta and Satlsh Chand from the Workmen side were fabricated and that some paras were not written which were agreed and which were part of the original agreement.
5. Section 6B of the U. P. Industrial Disputes Act states as under :
"6B. Settlement outside conciliation proceedings.--(1) A settlement arrived at by agreement between the employer and workmen otherwise than in the course of conciliation proceeding shall except as provided in sub-section (4), be binding on the parties to the agreement :
Provided that if the period for which a settlement shall remain in force has not been laid down in such settlement itself, it shall remain in force for one year from the date of its registration.
(2) As soon as settlement referred to in sub-section (1) has been arrived at, the parties to the settlement or any one of them may apply to the Conciliation Officer of the area concerned in the prescribed manner for registration of the settlement.
(3) On receipt of application for registration under sub-section (2) the Conciliation Officer or an authority notified by the State Government in this behalf, either : (i) register the settlement in the prescribed manner, or (ii) refuse registration if it considers it to be Inexpedient to do so on public grounds affecting social justice, or if the settlement has been brought about as a result of collusion, fraud or misrepresentation.
(4) Where a settlement under sub-section (1) has been refused registration, it shall not be binding under this Act."
Rule 26 of the U. P. Industrial Disputes Rules, 1957 requires that the application shall be in Form No. IX and shall be sent by the parties to the settlement or by any one of them within one month of the date of settlement to the Conciliation Officer of the area. Form No. IX is as under :
Application for Registration of Settlement To Dear Sir/Madam, We, the following parties, viz. (names and addresses of all the parties (Employer/Workmen).
(1) .....
(2) .....
do hereby apply for registration of the settlement arrived at between the above parties otherwise than in the conciliation proceedings on.....
(date). The memorandum of settlement in Form I, duly signed by all concerned, is hereby enclosed.
A copy of the memorandum of settlement remained affixed on the Notice Board, as required under Rule 26, from ..... (date) to ..... (date).
A brief recital of the case is also given below.
Yours faithfully, Signature, designations and names of the parties represented.
6. Although Section 6B or Rule 26 do not specifically require that the agreement should be in writing and signed by the parties but the application is required to be signed by both the parties. In this case, admittedly the application for settlement was made by the Employer alone and is not alleged to have been signed on behalf of the Workers. The copy of the application for registration of the settlement is at page 62 of the writ petition and it shows that it is not in the prescribed Form No. IX and is only in the form of a letter. Form No. IX requires the memorandum of settlement in Form No. I duly signed by all concerned to be enclosed. The application does not say so. It merely mentions in the enclosures that six copies of the settlement are enclosed and does not mention that they are signed, by all concerned. The application also does not state, as required in Form No. IX, that a copy of the memorandum of settlement remained affixed on the Notice Board, as required under Rule 26. Therefore, the application did not conform to the statutory requirements of the prescribed Form IX. As is evident, a serious industrial dispute was going on between the parties for a long time and the dispute had to be referred to the Industrial Tribunal. It is necessary that the settlement of such a dispute which is required to be registered under Section 6B of the Act, should be duly signed and verified by the parties before the Registering Officer and it would not be appropriate to register a retracted agreement. A proceeding for registration of the settlement cannot itself be handled like a dispute between the parties to be settled by the Conciliation Officer treating the proceeding like a suit for specific performance of a contract. If a party did not join in making the application for settlement and did not sign the memorandum of settlement and affirm the same before the Conciliation Officer, the settlement cannot be registered under the Act.
7. It appears that all was not fair and bond fide on the part of the employer. The alleged agreement contains a clause that if the workmen produce a copy of the Government Notification prohibiting the lock-out, then the wages of the prohibited period will be paid by the Employer. The settlement is said to have been arrived at between the parties on 1.11.1994 and the petitioner had much earlier challenged the notification and succeeded in this Court and the matter was pending before the Supreme Court, al the instance of the workmen. One cannot appreciate the conduct of the Employer, who knew about the notification quite well, in requiring the respondents to produce the same and making the payment conditional on the production of the said notification by the workmen. There is, therefore, substance in the contention of the respondent workmen that in fact the employer had no intention to cany out the settlement and started wriggling out of it and that forced them to retract from the same.
8. A settlement of an industrial dispute outside the conciliation proceeding is a matter of private contract between the employer and the workmen and the same cannot be enforced through a writ petition at the Instance of one of them. In a case where the workmen as well as the employer have moved a proper application and asserted a particular settlement and yet for some reason the Conciliation Officer declined to register the settlement, it may be possible for a Court to issue an appropriate writ but where one of the parties wriggles out of the agreement and is not willing to affirm the same in the registration proceedings, the High Court cannot interfere under Article 226 of the Constitution of India and the parties have to lake other measures regarding the settlement of their dispute. As is evident, in the present case an industrial dispute between the parties has already been referred to the Labour Court and it will be decided there. The writ petition, therefore, is liable to be dismissed.
9. The writ petition is dismissed with costs to the respondents.