The Judgment of the Court was delivered by

Somasundaram, J.:— The respondents 1 and 2 in W.P No. 1691 of 1981 are the appellants in W.A No. 917 of 1987. The petitioner and the 3rd respondent in W.P No. 1691 of 1981 are the respondents in W.A 917 of 1987. The respondent in W.P No. 7853 of 1982 is the appellant in W.A No. 918 of 1987. The petitioners in W.P No. 7853 of 1982 are the respondents in W.A No. 918 of 1987. For the sake of convenience the parties are referred to by the nomenclature given to them in the writ petitions.

2. The prayer in W.P No. 1691 of 1981 is for the issue of a writ of certiorarified mandamus to quash the order dated 28.1.1981 issued by the second respondent and for directing the petitioner's reinstatement. In W.P No. 7853 of 1982 the petitioners challenge the Regulations 21 and 31-G of the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board Officers and Servants Conduct Regulations, 1972 and pray for issue of a writ of declaration declaring the said regulations as illegal and unconstitutional in so far as the petitioners are concerned. The first respondent in W.P No. 1691 of 1981 and the respondent in W.P No. 7853 of 1982 is the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board, which is a statutory body created under the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board Act, 1970 (Act IV of 1971). The concerned employee in both the writ petitions is a workman, Section 73 of the Act IV of 1971 empowers the respondent Board to frame regulations. Before going to the merits of the case, it is advisable to extract Regulations 21 and 31 of the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board Officers and Servants Conduct Regulations, 1972 and they stand extracted as follows:

“21. Taking part in politics and elections: (1) No employee shall be a member or be otherwise associated with, any political party or any organisation which take part in, subscribe in aid of or assist in any other manner any political movement or activity.

(2) It shall be the duty of every employee to endeavour to prevent any member of his family from taking part in, subscribing in aid of, or assisting in any other manner any movement or activity which is, or tends directly or indirectly to be, subversive of the Government as by law established, and where an employee is unable to prevent a member of his family from taking part in, or subscribing in aid of, or assisting in any other manner, any such movement or activity he shall make a report to that effect to the Managing Director or to the officer to whom he is subordinate.

(3) If any question arises whether any movement or activity falls within the scope of this regulation, the decision of the Board thereon shall be final.

(4) No employee shall canvass or otherwise interfere or use his influence in connection with or take part in an election to any legislature or local authority.”

“31. Membership of service association.—No officer or servant shall be a member, representative or office-bearer of any association representing or purporting to represent officers or servants of the Board or any class of officers or servants, unless such Association satisfies the following conditions, namely: (a) membership of the Association shall be confined to a distinct class of Board's servants and shall be open to all Board's servants of that class.

(b) the Association shall not in any way be connected with any political party or organisation or engage itself in any political activity.

(c) The association shall be recognised one and such recognition shall be accorded by the Board;

(d) the Association shall not issue or maintain any publication, political or otherwise, except with the permission or the Board;

(e) except with the previous sanction of the Board, the Association shall not publish any representation on behalf of its members, whether in the press or otherwise;

(f) the Association shall not in any way, be connected with any election to a Legislative body, whether in India or elsewhere or to a local authority or a body; and

(g) the Association shall not pay or contribute towards expenses of any trade union which has constituted a fund under Section 16 of the Indian Trade Union's Act, 1926 (Central Act XVI of 1926).”

3. The petitioners challenged Regulations 12 and 31-G of the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board Officers and Servants Regulations, 1972 on the following two grounds:

“(a) Regulations 21 and 31-G referred above are unconstitutional as they are offending Article 19(1), (b) and (c) of the Constitution.

(b) The respondent-Board is not only an industry as defined in Section 2(j) of the Industrial Disputes Act, but is also an industrial establishment within the meaning of Section 2(3)(i) of the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act of 1946, hereinafter referred to as the Act of 1946 and, therefore, by virtue of Section 12(a) of the Act of 1946, prescribed Model Standing Orders shall alone apply to the respondent-Board and consequently the respondents regulations referred above would not prevail over the Model Standing Orders.”

4. With regard to the question whether the impugned regulations offend Article 19(1)(b) and (c) of the Constitution, the learned single Judge found that the impugned regulations do not offend Article 19(1)(b) and (c) of the Constitution and upheld the constitutional validity of Regulations 21 and 31-G referred above. However, the learned single Judge held that the respondent-Board is an industry within the meaning of Section 2(j) of the Industrial Disputes Act and it is an industrial establishment within the meaning of Section 2(e)(i) of the Act of 1946 and, therefore, by virtue of Section 12-A of the Act of 1946, the prescribed Model Standing Orders alone shall apply to the respondent-board and the respondent's regulations would not prevail over the Model Standing Orders. The learned single Judge further held that the impugned regulations cannot govern the workman employed by the respondent-board and, therefore, the proceedings taken against the workman under the impugned regulations are illegal and without jurisdiction. Consequently the learned single Judge by a common order allowed both the writ petitions. As against the common order of the learned single Judge the respondent have preferred the present writ appeals.

5. The first question we have to examine in these writ appeals is, whether the respondent Board is ‘an industrial establishment’ within the meaning of Section 2(e)(i) of the Act of 1946. Section 2(e)(i) of the Act of 1946 defines Industrial Establishment as follows:

“Industrial Establishment” means an industrial establishment as defined in clause (i) of Section 2 of the Payment Wages of Act, 1936 (Act IV of 1936). According to Section 2(ii)(g) of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, “industrial establishment” means any establishment in which any work relating to the construction, development or maintenance of buildings, roads, bridges or canals or relating to operations connected with navigation, irrigation, or the supply of water or relating to the generation, transmission and distribution or electricity of any other form of power is being carried on. The learned Advocate General on behalf of the respondents would contend that the respondent-Board does not supply water but only executes water supply and sewerage works on behalf of local bodies and hand them over to local bodies after such completion and, therefore, the respondent-board cannot be called an industrial establishment within the meaning of Section 2(ii)(g) of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936. This contention of the learned Advocate-General cannot be countenanced because it runs counter to the plain meaning of Section 2(ii)(g) of the above Act. According to Section 2(ii)(g) any establishment in which any work relating to operations connected with-supply of water is being carried on will be an industrial establishment. The preamble to the Tamil Nadu Act IV of 1971 under which the respondent Board is created states that it is an Act to provide for the establishment of water supply and drainage board and the regulation and development of drinking water and drainage in the State of Tamil Nadu. It is also useful to refer the statement of objects and reasons for enacting the Act IV of 1971. The statement of objects and reasons runs as follows:

“The importance of providing for protected drinking water and adequate drainage facilities to urban and rural areas alike has been engaging the attention of the Government for quite some time past. At present, matters connected with drinking water supply and drainage scheme are being dealt with by several Departments. The Government considered that for effective planning and execution of drinking water and drainage schemes, it was essential that these were brought under the purview and control of a single agency for purposes of investigating; preparing and executing water supply and drainage schemes. Accordingly, the Government constituted the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board to achieve the above object.

Government are of the view that if the Board could be set up as an autonomous body on a statutory footing, it will conduce to speedier planning, investigation and execution of schemes and also enable it to raise substantial resources from financing institutions and in the open market, with a view to providing drinking water and drainage facilities to urban and rural areas in the State of Tamil Nadu within the shortest possible time. The Bill provides for the constitution of an autonomous Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board to be entrusted with powers and functions to investigate, prepare and execute water supply and drainage scheme throughout the State and matters connected therewith.”

6. Section 16 of Act IV of 1971 describes the powers and functions of the respondent-Board. Sub-clauses (2) and (3) of Section 16 would clearly indicate that one of the functions of the Board is to execute the water and drainage schemes under a phased programme for the provision of drinking water and drainage facilities, within the areas of the local authorities to which such schemes relate and also to establish and maintain schemes incidental to water supply and drainage such as testing of water, designing of plant for purification of water, conducting research relating to water supply and maintaining farm schemes. A careful examination of the preamble to the Tamil Nadu Act IV of 1971, the statement of objects and reasons and Section 16 of the Act of 1946 will clearly show that the respondent-Board is an establishment in which works relating to operations connected with supply of water is being carried on and consequently the respondent-Board is an industrial establishment within the meaning of Section 2(ii)(g) of the Payment of Wages Act. Consequently we agree with the conclusion of the learned single Judge that Act of 1946 would apply to the respondent Board. If the Act of 1946 is attracted, in the absence of Certified Standing Orders, Model Standing Orders will apply to the respondent Board. Then we have to examine the question whether the regulations framed by the respondent Board in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 73 of the Act IV of 1971 will prevail over the Act of 1946 and the Model Standing Orders. We have already opined that once when Act of 1946 is attracted, in the absence of Certified Standing Orders, Model Standing Orders shall govern.

7. Mr. K. Chandru, learned counsel for the petitioner would contend that the Act of 1946 is a special law in regard to matters enumerated in the schedule to that Act and the regulations made by the respondent-Board with regard to any of those matters in exercise of the powers under Section 73 of the Act IV of 1971 are of no effect unless the said regulations are either notified by the Government under Section 13-B or certified by the certifying office, under Section 5 of the Act of 1946. In support of his contention, the learned counsel relied on the decision in U.P State Electricity Board v. Hari Shankar Jain 1978 2 LLJ 399.. In the above decision, the Supreme Court has held as follows:

“We have already shown that the Industrial Establishments (Standing Orders) Act is a Special Act dealing with a specific subject, namely, the conditions of service, enumerated in the Schedule, or workmen in industrial establishments. It is impossible to conceive that Parliament sought to abrogate the provisions of the Industrial Establishments (Standing Orders) Act embodying as they do an elaborate procedure including a quasi-judicial determination, by a general, incidental provision like Section 79(c) of the Electricity Supply Act. It is obvious that Parliament did not have before it the Standing Orders Act when it passed the Electricity Supply Act and Parliament never meant that the Standing Orders Act should stand pro tanto repealed by Section 79(c) of the Electricity Supply Act. We are clearly of the view that the provisions of the Standing Orders Act must prevail over Section 79(c) of the Electricity Supply Act, in regard to matters to which the Standing Orders Act applies.”

8. Learned counsel also relied on the decision in Life Insurance Corporation of India v. D.J Bahadur 1981 1 LLJ 1.. The Supreme Court, dealing with the question which of the two Central Acts viz., the Industrial Establishment Act of 1947 and the Life Insurance Corporation Act of 1956 is a general law and which is a special law, held as follows:

“The crucial question with demands an answer before we settle the issue is as to whether the LIC Act is a special statute and the ID Act a general statute so that the latter pro tanto repeals or prevails over the earlier one. What do we mean by a special statute and, in the scheme of the two enactments in question, which can we regard as the special Act and which the general. An implied repeal is the last judicial refuge and unless driven to that conclusion, is rarely resorted to. The decisive point is as to whether the ID Act can be displaced or dismissed as a general statute. If it can be and if the LIC Act is a special statute the proposition contended for by the appellant that the settlement depending on its sustenance on the ID Act cannot hold good against Sections 11 and 40 of the LIC Act, read with Regulations 58 thereunder. This exercise constrains me to study the scheme of the two statutes in the context of the specific controversy I am dealing with. There is no doubt that the LIC Act, as its long title suggests, is an Act to provide for the nationalisation of life insurance business in India by transferring all such business to a Corporation established for the purpose and to provide for the regulation and control of the business of the Corporation and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. Its primary purpose was to nationalise private insurance business and to establish the Life Insurance Corporation of India. Inevitably, the enactment spelt out the functions of the Corporation, provided for the transfer of existing life insurance business to the Corporation and set out in detail how the management, finance, accounts and audit of the Corporation should be conducted. Incidentally, there was provision for transfer of service of existing employees of the insurers to the Corporation and, sub-incidentally, their conditions of service also had to be provided for. The power to make regulations covering all matter of managements was also vested in appropriate authorities. It is plain and beyond dispute that so far as nationalisation of insurance business is concerned, the LIC. Act is a special legislation but equally indubitably is the inference, from a bare perusal of the subject, scheme and sections, and understanding of the anatomy of the Act, that it has nothing to do with the particular problem of disputes between employer and employees, or investigation and adjudication of such disputes. It does not deal with workmen and puts between workmen and employers or with industrial disputes. The Corporation has an army of employees who are not workmen at all. For instance, the higher echelons other types of employees do not fall within scope of workmen as defined in Section 2(s) of the ID Act. Nor is the Corporation's main business investigation and adjudication of labour disputes any more than a motor manufacturer's chief business in spraying paints.

In determining whether a statute is a special or general one, the focus must be on the principal subject matter plus the particular perspective. For certain purposes, an Act may be general and for certain other purposes it may be special and we cannot blur distinctions when dealing with finer points of law. In law, we have a cosmos of relatively, not absolutes-so too in life. The LD. Act is a special statute devoted wholly to investigation and settlement of industrial disputes which provides definitionally for the nature of industrial disputes coming within its ambit.

It creates an infrastructure for investigation into solution of and adjudication upon industrial disputes. It also provides the necessary machinery for enforcement of awards and settlements. From alpha to omega the LD. Act has one special mission the resolution of industrial disputes through specialised agencies according to specialised procedures and with special reference to the weaker categories of employees coming within the definition of workmen. Therefore, with reference to industrial disputes between employers, and workmen, the LD. Act is a special statute, and the LIC Act does not speak at all with specific reference to workmen. On the other hand, its powers relate to the general aspects of nationalisation of management when private businesses are nationalised and a plurality of problems which, incidentally, involve transfer of service of existing employees of insurers. The workmen qua workman and industrial disputes between workmen and the employer as such, are beyond the orbit of and have no specific or special place in the scheme of the LIC. Act. And whenever there was a dispute between workmen and management the LD. Act mechanism was resorted to.

What are we confronted within the present case so that I may determine as between the two enactments which is the special? The only subject which has led to this litigation and which is the bone of contention between the parties is an industrial dispute between the Corporation and its workmen qua workmen. If we refuse to be obfuscated by legal abracadbra and see plainly what is so obvious, the conclusion that flows, in the wake of the study I have made, is that vis-a-vis “industrial disputes” at the termination of the settlement as between the workmen and the Corporation the LD. Act is a special legislation and the L.I.C Act a general legislation. Likewise, when compensation on nationalisation is the question, the L.I.C Act is the special statutes. An application of the generalia maxim as expounded by English textbooks and decisions leaves us in no doubt that the LD. Act being special law prevails over the LIC Act which is but general law.”

9. On the other hand, the learned Advocate General would contend as follows: As between the two Central enactments such as LIC Act and ID Act, the LIC Act and the Act of 1946 and the Electricity Supply Act and the Act of 1946, the principle generalia specilibus non-derogant will apply. But, as between the Central Act, even if it be the Act of 1946 and the State enactment touched an item in the concurrent List No. 3 in the 9th Schedule to the Constitution of India and having received the assent of the President of India, the State Act shall prevail by virtue of Article 254 of the Constitution of India. The regulations made pursuant to the power conferred on the respondent-board under Section 73 of the Act IV of 1971 shall prevail over all the Central enactments including the Act of 1946. The learned Advocate-General further contended that in any event the impugned regulations limited to the employees of the respondent-Board will be a special enactment vis-a-vis the Act of 1946, which is applicable to all workmen in all industrial establishments throughout India. We are unable to countenance the above contention of the learned Advocate-General in view of the decisions of the Supreme Court in U.P State Electricity Board v. Hari Shankar Jain, and the Full Bench decision of this Court in Bagianathan, S. v. The Secretary to the Government of Tamil Nadu etc.. In U.P State Electricity Board v. Hari Shankar Jain 1978 2 LLJ 399., the Supreme Court held that the Industrial Establishments Standing Orders Act is a special law in regard to matters enumerated in the schedule and the regulations made by the U.P State Electricity Board with regard to any of those matters are of no effect unless such regulations are either notified by the certifying officer under Section 5 of the Standing Orders Act. In regard to matters in respect of which regulations made by the U.P State Electricity Board having been notified by the Governors, the Standing Orders Act shall continue to apply. It is worthwhile to extract the following observations made by the Supreme Court in the above decision:

“In Thiruvenkataswami's case, (1968) 1 LLJ 361, Kailasam, J, also observed that the Industrial Establishments (Standing Orders) Act was a special Act relating exclusively to the service conditions of persons employed in industrial establishments, and therefore, its provisions prevailed over the provisions of the District Municipalities Act. We entirely agree.”

10. In Bagianathan, S. v. The Secretary to the Government of Tamil Nadu, etc. 1984 Writ L. R. 107. a Full Bench of this Court considered the question whether the provisions of the Standing Orders Act will prevail over the provisions of the Tamil Nadu District Municipalities Act and the rule framed thereunder in their applicability to such municipal electrical undertaking. The Full Bench, after referring to the decision of the Supreme Court in U.P State Electricity Board v. Hari Shankar Jain 1978 2 LLJ 399., answered the question referred above in the following terms:

“In the light of the decisions of the Supreme Court referred to earlier, it will be convenient now to take up question No. 3, set forth at the outset. Earlier, we had seen how Kailasam, J. (as he then was) in constructing the question whether the Standing Orders Act would be special enactment relating exclusively to the service conditions of persons employed in industrial establishments and such a special Act, would prevail over the provisions of the District Municipalities Act, generally dealing with the administration of municipalities, concluded that the Standing Orders Act would prevail over the provisions of the District Municipalities Act. This view was not accepted by the Division Bench in Coimbatore Municipality by its Commissioner, Coimbatore v. K. Thiruvenkatasawami, doing so, the Division Bench examined extenso the contention raised that by virtue of Section 107 of the Government of India Act, 1935, corresponding to Article 254 of the Constitution of India, the provisions contained in the District Municipalities Act will come to give way to the provisions of the Standing Order Act and held that the Standing Orders and the Model Standing Orders thereunder would be a general Central enactment applicable throughout the territory of India in respect of ‘Industrial Establishments' coming within its scope and that the rules framed in the exercise of the powers conferred under, Section 74 of the District Municipalities Act would constitute special law and on the appreciation of the principle that special law will exclude the general, the rules made by the Government under Section 74 of the District Municipalities Act, will prevail over the Standing Orders Act or the Model Standing Orders thereunder. This view of the Division Bench does not appear to have been brought to the notice of the Supreme Court at the time when the decision in the U. P. State Electricity Board v. Hari Shankar Jain, was rendered by it. Even so,’ the attention of the Supreme Court had been drawn to the decisions of this Court in Raman Nambisan v. State Electricity Board, and Thiruvenkatasawami v. Coimbatore Municipality and the Supreme Court, while expressing its agreement with the conclusions in both these cases, had made a pointed and particular reference to the observations of Kailasam, J. (as he then was) in Thiruvenkatasawami v. Coimbatore Municipality, and stated at page 74 that the Standing Orders Act was a special Act relating exclusively to the service condition of persons employed in industrial establishments and therefore, its provisions will prevail over the provisions of the District Municipalities Act or the rules framed by the State Government under Section 74. In view of the approval by the Supreme Court of the view expressed by Kailasam, J. (as he then was), with reference to the provisions of the Standing Orders Act being a special enactment prevailing over the provisions of the District Municipalities Act the decision contra by the Division Bench in Coimbatore Municipality by its Commissioner, Coimbatore v. K. Thiruvenkataswami ILR 1973 I Mad. 405 = 82 L.W 46., to the effect that the provisions of the District Municipalities Act or the rules framed in exercise of the powers conferred under Section 74 of that Act would constitute special law and would exclude the applicability of the Standing Orders Act, which would be in the nature of general law applicable to all industrial establishments throughout the territory coming within its scope, cannot be sustained.

11. Applying the ratio of the decision of the Supreme Court in the U.P State Electricity Board v. Hari Shankar Jain, referred to earlier, we hold on the third question set out at the beginning that the provisions of the Standing Orders Act, if applicable to a municipal undertaking as an industrial establishment defined in the Standing Orders Act, being in the nature of a special enactment, will prevail over the provisions of the District Municipalities Act and the rules thereunder and to this extent the Division Bench in The Coimbatore Municipality represented by its Commissioner, Coimbatore v. Thiruvenkalaswami, is not correct. The principles laid down by the Supreme Court in U.P State, Electricity Board v. Hari Shankar Jain, and Bagianathan, S. v. The Secretary to the Government of Tamil Nadu etc. are applicable to the facts of the present case and we fully agree with the conclusion of the learned single Judge that the Act of 1946 is a special law vis-a-vis regulations framed under the general law viz., the Tamil Nadu Act IV of 1971 and it will prevail over the regulations, framed by the respondent-Board in exercise of the powers conferred under Section 73 of the Act IV of 1971. The learned single Judge also rightly held that the respondent-Board is an ‘industrial establishment’ within the meaning of Section 2(c)(i) of the Act of 1946; that the regulations framed by the respondent-board in exercise of the powers under Section 73 of the Act IV of 1971 will not be applicable to the workmen governed by the Act of 1946 and that the disciplinary action taken by the respondent-Board against the workmen based on the regulations have to be struck down.

12. Coming to the question of the constitutional validity of Regulations 21 and 3T-G of the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board Officers and Servants Conduct Regulations 1972, we are of the view that such question need not be gone into in these writ appeals since no instance of any one other than the workman being proceeded against under the impugned regulations has been brought to our notice. The apprehension of the petitioners that in case the regulations are notified, they may be invoked against a workman is also in the sphere of contingency which may or may not happen, in case the impugned regulations are notified under Section 13-B of the Act of 1946; the vires of the regulations can be challenged provided if any party is aggrieved. It is true, findings have been rendered by the learned single Judge against the petitioners on the question of the constitutional vires and the concerned regulations. Such findings rendered by the learned single Judge need not stand and they are hereby vacated as totally unnecessary. The discussion of ours, as above, obliges us to dismiss the writ appeals. Accordingly, both the writ appeals are dismissed, but, in the circumstances, of the case, there will be no order as to costs.

13. Appeals dismissed.