Desai, J.:— This is an appeal from the judgment of our brother M.L Chaturvedi, refusing to interfere with an order passed by the Labour Appellate Tribunal of India.
2. The appellant was a workman employed by respondent no. 1, and was dismissed by the respondent on 10.5.1950 on the ground of his having participated in an illegal strike. The appellant challenged his dismissal in a representation to the State Government, which referred the dispute, as an industrial dispute, for adjudication. The adjudicator ordered reinstatement of the appellant on 30-10-1950. The respondent preferred an appeal from this order to the Labour Appellate Tribunal of India respondent No. 2. A bench of the Tribunal sitting at Lucknow allowed the appeal on 19-7-1951, and restored the order of dismissal.
3. The appellant then filed an application in this Court for a writ of certiorari to quash the order of the Labour Appellate Tribunal of India (to be referred hereinforth as the Tribunal) on the ground of want of jurisdiction. It is not disputed that the Tribunal had jurisdiction to entertain the appeal from the adjudicator's order only if a substantial question of law was involved. It was contended on behalf of the appellant that no substantial question of law was involved in the appeal preferred by the respondent and that consequently the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to entertain it and then to allow it. Our learned brother rejected the application holding that the appeal did involve a substantial question of law and that in any case the Tribunal's finding that it did was not manifestly erroneous.
4. A preliminary objection has been raised to the maintainability of this appeal. The appeal has been filed against the employer of the appellant, and the “Labour Appellate Tribunal of India, Calcutta”. Since the Tribunal is situated outside the territorial limits of this Court, no writ can be issued to it. The Bench of the Tribunal at Lucknow was within the territorial limits but has been abolished. There is no tribunal or any other authority situated within the territorial limits of this Court to which it can issue any writ, direction or order. It is true, as observed by the Supreme Court in Hari Vishnu Kamath v. Ahmad Ishaque1, that a writ of certiorari goes to the record and not to the tribunal that has prepared it and that its proceedings can be quashed by a writ of certiorari even if it has become functus officio, but a writ of certiorari consists of an order to send up proceedings to the High Court so that their legality may be examined and they may be quashed if found to be without jurisdiction. Though what is quashed is the proceedings, an order directing them to be submitted to the High Court must be issued to some authority having control or possession of the record of the proceedings and the authority must be within the territorial limits of the High Court. The High Court cannot issue an order to a person, outside its territorial jurisdiction directing him to submit any record to it. So this Court has no jurisdiction to issue an order to respondent No. 2 to submit any record to it. If the Lucknow Bench had been functioning the order could have been issued to it; even if it had sent the record to a place outside the territorial limits of this Court it could have been directed to get it back from there and to submit it to this Court and it would have been its duty to comply. But as the Bench has been abolished or has become functus officio and the record also has gone outside the territorial limits of this Court, nothing can be done; no order can be issued to the Bench (because it does not exist) and no order can be issued to the person or authority having control or possession of the record (because he is outside the jurisdiction of this Court). If a tribunal has been abolished or become functus officio but the record is within the territorial limits of the High Court, it can obtain it from the person who has custody or possession of it, because he being within the territorial limits, is subject to its jurisdiction and bound to comply with its order. This is what was meant by the Supreme Court when it observed that the writ goes to the record. It is essential for the record to be before the Court before its correctness can be examined and the proceedings can be quashed; it is not essential for the tribunal also to be before the High Court. If the tribunal is there it is all right, but so long as the record is before the High Court, it does not matter whether the tribunal is before it or not, or has become functus officio or not. In the present case neither the record is before the Court nor is the Tribunal within the territorial jurisdiction of the Court. It has been established that the record is at Calcutta. There is, therefore, nothing that can be examined and quashed.
5. It was argued by Sri S.C Khare, that the record must be deemed to have been before this Court because of the writ petition filed by the appellant, but our learned brother had not sent for it. If he had sent for it, it might have been deemed to be in this Court, even if he had, after rejecting the writ petition, returned it. But when he never sent for it and it never came before this Court it cannot be deemed to be present here. We therefore decide that the proceedings of the Labour Appellate Tribunal of India, Lucknow Bench, cannot be quashed by us; in other words the special appeal must fail.
6. Even on merits we find that there is no substance in it. The main question is whether the Tribunal had jurisdiction to entertain the appeal; it held that it had because the appeal preferred by the respondent involved a substantial question of law. The question raised by the respondent in the appeal was of the jurisdiction, of the adjudicator to quash its order of dismissal. The adjudicator was a creature of statute and derived all his powers from it. In J.K Iron and Steel Co. Ltd., Kanpur v. The Iron and Steel Mazdoor Union, Kanpur . A.I.R 1956 S.C 231., it was observed by Bose, J. at page 235:—
“All the same, wide as their powers are, these Tribunals are not absolute, and, there are limitations to the ambit of their authority ………………………… these Tribunals are not Courts in the strict sense of the term they have to discharge quasi judicial functions and as such are subject to the overriding jurisdiction of this Court under Art. 136 of the Constitution. Their powers are derived from the statute that creates them and they have to function within the limits imposed there and to act according to its provisions.”
7. Consequently we are of the opinion that whether he had power to interfere with the order of dismissal passed by the respondent or not was a question of jurisdiction and a question of jurisdiction is undoubtedly a question of law, because it depends upon the provisions the law conferring jurisdiction upon the authority. The adjudicator set aside the order of dismissal not on the ground of want of jurisdiction on the part of the respondent or of any irregularity in the procedure adopted by it, but on a reassessment of the evidence that was produced during the enquiry into the charge framed against the appellant. Whether he had jurisdiction to do so or not was a substantial question of law. A similar view was taken by one of us in Writ Petition No. 842 of 1955 Radha Raman Bajpai v. The Labour Appellate Tribunal decided on 22-2-1956.
8. Reliance was placed upon Kanpur Mazdoor Congress v. J.K Spinning & Weaving Mills Co., Ltd., Kanpur . A.I.R 1953 Alld. 32., in which a Bench of this Court held that the question whether an industrial court is entitled to interfere with the punishment inflicted by the management in accordance with the standing orders in a proper enquiry is a question of law, Sri S.C Khare, on the other hand, relied upon M.K Ranganathan v. The Madras Electric Tramways . A.I.R 1952 Mad. 659., in which Subba Rao, J. laid down that the question whether an industrial tribunal had jurisdiction to set aside an order of dismissal on the ground of its being excessive was not a substantial question of law. With great respect we are unable to agree that a question of jurisdiction or power is not a question of law. Very recently in Caltex (India) Ltd. v. E. Fernandes (Civil Appeal No. 240 of 1954), decided on 30-10-1956, the Supreme Court observed as follows:—
“Once the Industrial Tribunal came to the conclusion in the present case that the enquiry which was conducted by the appellants was fair and no principles of natural justice had been violated in the conduct of the enquiry and the appellants bona fide came to the conclusion that dismissal was the only punishment which should be meted out by them to the first respondent, the Industrial Tribunal had no power to substitute another punishment for the one which was sought to be meted out by the appellants to the first respondent nor to impose any conditions on the appellants before the requisite permission could be granted to them. The whole approach of the Industrial Tribunal was wrong, and, in so far as the Industrial Tribunal had sought to impose on the appellants the conditions set out hereinabove, before the requisite permission could be granted to them, the Industrial Tribunal was exercising a jurisdiction which was not vested in it by law and substantial question of law in regard to the jurisdiction of the Industrial Tribunal did arise in the appeal which was filed by the appellants before the Labour Appellate Tribunal. That being so, the Labour Appellate Tribunal had jurisdiction to entertain the appeal……………….”
9. Even if the Tribunal wrongly held that it had jurisdiction, its view cannot certainly be said to be manifestly wrong and no certiorari would lie to quash it. It would be a merely wrong view taken by it and we have no power to correct mere errors of law.
10. We dismiss the appeal with costs.
11. Appeal dismissed.