Ramswaroop Mongaria vs Presiding Officer, Labour Court and Another

Sushil Harkauli, J.—The petitioner is a workman whose services have been terminated, and the dispute challenging the termination is pending before the Labour Court for the past more than a year.

This writ petition has been filed with a prayer that the Labor Court should be directed to decide the case within a time frame to be fixed by this Court. Reliance has been placed upon some provisions of the Act.

In our opinion, merely because a litigant has filed a writ petition, it would not be appropriate for this Court to fix time frames and to direct the Labor Court, or for that matter any subordinate or inferior tribunal, to decide the dispute within such particular period. This is because this Court is not aware of the Board of the Courts/Tribunals below, as to how many cases older or more urgent than this case are still pending. Ordering a priority to one case obviously can only be at the cost of delay to the other pending cases.

Therefore, unless the case before the inferior tribunal is exceptionally old, or the order-sheet indicates undue neglect of unduly long adjournments, normally the tribunal should be at liberty to manage its own Board and such application seeking expediting disposal should be moved and examined at that level.

Therefore, we consider and it appropriate to require the petitioner to move an application for expeditious disposal of the case before the Labor Court itself, and if such an application is moved, the Labor Court will attempt to decide the case with such expedition as may be possible in the light of the other older or more urgent cases which are pending before that Court. Subject to above, the writ petition is disposed of.

Petition disposed of.