1. Exhibit P 3 is under challenge.
2. By exhibit P 3 the second respondent has virtually revoked the order, he had passed, permitting the petitioner to have it being represented in industrial Dispute No. 7 of 1983, by a lawyer.
3. Relevant facts lie in a narrow compass. They are: Pursuant to the notice, the petitioner appeared before the second respondent through lawyer who filed the vakalath on 2 September 1983. The first respondent also appeared before the second respondent through lawyer who filed vakalath on 7 September 1983. The other two trade unions impleaded as parties to the proceedings, are not interested in the outcome of the proceedings and, therefore, they have not been participating in the enquiry.
4. This was the state of affairs when on 8 November 1985, the first respondent filed the petition. Civil Miscellaneous Petition No. 59 of 1985 (exhibit P1), praying that it may be allowed to conduct the case without the assistance of the lawyer and that the vakalath filed by the counsel on its behalf, therefore, be cancelled. The first respondent simultaneously objected the petitioner being represented by the lawyer. In short, the first respondent wanted the second respondent to pass an order directing the petitioner to dispense with the service of the counsel who had filed vakalath on its behalf as early as on 2 September 1983.
5. The second respondent by the impugned order has allowed the petition, Civil Miscellaneous Petition No. 59 of 1985.
6. The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that S. 36 4) of the Industrial Disputes Act, does not contain: a provision enabling the first respondent to revoke the consent once given and which is the basis of the order of the second respondent granting permission to the petitioner to engage a lawyer to represent its case. The order, exhibit P 3, under challenge, therefore, is liable to be set aside, the learned counsel submits.
7. Section 36(4) reads:
“In any proceeding before a Labour Court, Tribunal or National Tribunal, a patty to a dispute may be represented by a legal practitioner with the consent of the other parties to the proceeding and with the leave of the Labour Court, Tribunal or National Tribunal, as, the case may be.”
8. This section does not prescribe that the consent must be given in a particular manner or in a particular form. It that be so, the consent of a party which is the basis for the grant of leave to the other party for being represented by a lawyer in a proceeding under the Industrial Disputes Act, can be inferred from the surrounding circumstances as also the conduct of the consenting party. Consent can be implied. The section does not insist upon a written consent. Consent once given cannot be revoked at a later stage because there is no provision in the Industrial Disputes Act enabling such withdrawal or revocation. To put it pithily the consent once given by a party, entitling the other part to be represented in the proceeding by a lawyer would enure to his benefit all the proceeding is finally disposed of. I am fortified in this view by a decision of the Calcutta High Court in Reckitt and Colman v. Jitendra Nath (A.I.R 1956 Cal. 353].
9. Considered in the light of the principles of law enunciated above, I am of the view, that the conduct of the first respondent in objecting to the petitioner being represented by a lawyer in Industrial Dispute No 7 of 1983, amounts to a revocation of its consent. This is not permissible.
10. The second respondent, therefore, committed an error in allowing Civil Miscellaneous Petition No. 59 of 1985 in Industrial Dispute No. 7 of 1983. Exhibit P3, therefore, is liable to be set aside.
11. I accordingly set aside exhibit P3 and direct the second respondent to dispose of Industrial Dispute No. 7 of 1983, as expeditiously as possible, in any event, within three months from the date of receipt of a copy of this judgment. The petitioner, therefore, will be permitted to engage a lawyer to represent their case.
12. The original petition is allowed as above. No order as to costs.
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