MESSRS. CROWN ALUMINIUM WORKS versus THEIR WORKMEN

Citation: [1958] 1 S.C.R. 651 · Decided: 15-10-1957 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: NATWARLAL HARILAL BHAGWATI

Judgment (excerpt)

S.C.R. 
SUPR~E COURT REPORTS 
651 
And finally it is contended that the petitioner has 
a right as a citizen to approach this Court under Art. 
71(1) whenever an election has been held in breach of 
the constitutional provisions. For the re~sons already 
given, this contention must fail. The right of a person 
to file an application for setting aside an election must 
be determined by the statute which gives it, and that 
statute is Act XXXI of 1952 passed under Art. 71(3). 
The petitioner must strictly bring himself within the 
four corners of that statute and has no rights apart 
from it. The order appealed against is clearly right 
and this appeal is dismissed. 
Petition dismissed. 
MESSRS. CROWN ALUMINIUM WORKS 
'V. 
THEIR WORKMEN. 
(BHAGWATI, S. K. DAS and GAJENDRAGADKAR, JJ.~ 
Industrial Dispute-Adjudication-Constitution of wage struc-
ture-Revision of such structure, if can be made to the prejudice of 
workmen-Convention-Governing principle. 
Although there can be no rigid and inexorable convention 
that a wage structure once fixed can never be changed to the 
prejudice ·of the workmen, there are well-recognised principles on 
which such revision must be founded, one important principle, 
to which there can be no exceptions, is that the wages of workmen 
cannot be allowed to fall below the bare subsistence level. It-
follows, therefore, that no industry can have the right to exist if 
it cannot be maintained except by bringing the wages below that 
level. 
The Constitution of J ndia seeks to create a democratic 
welfare state and secure social and economic justice to the citizens. 
Growth of industries and the advent 
of collective bargaining 
between organized labour and capital with consequent industrial 
legislation have made absolute 
freedom of contract and the-
doctrine of laissez faire things of the past and they have now to 
yield place to principles of social welfare and common good. 
Industrial adjudication has, thus, to keep in view the ideal of a 
democratic welfare state and its immediate objectiye in constitut-
ing a wage structure must be to secure the genuine and whole-
hearted co-operation between labour and capital in the task of 
production by a just adjustment of their conflicting interests by 
1957 
Dr. N. B. Khare 
v. 
Election 
Commission 
of India 
Venkatarama 
Aiyar, J. 
1957 
October, 15. 
652 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
[1958) 
1957 
the application of several principles such as for instance the 
principles of comparable wages. the productivity of the trade or 
Messrs. Crown industry, cost of living and.ability of the industry to pay. 
Alununuan Works 
v. 
In a case where the \vagc structure is of a higher category, it 
Their Workn1en is open to the employer to claim its revision provided he can 
satisfy the Tribunal that such revision is reasonable on 
the 
merits and fair and just to t.he parties. 
Where, however, the employer's 
financial 
difficulties are 
sought to be made a ground for such revision, the Tribunal has to 
decide whether such difficulties could or could not be adequately 
met by such retrenchment in personnel as has already been effected 
by the employer and sanctioned by the Tribunal. 
Consequently, in case where the Indistrial Tribunal fixed the 
wage structure and the dearness allowance but gave the employer 
liberty to abolish the two hours' concessions, facility bonus and 
the food concession, holding them to be in the nature of bounty 
gratuitously paid to the workmen by the employer, 
and the 
Labour Appellate Tribunal took the view that these concessions, 
which had been enjoyed by the workmen for a pretty long time as of 
right and as part of their basic wages and dearness allowance, had 
become a term of the conditions of their service, and revised the 
wage structure in respect of existing workmen by incorporating 
the concessions into their basic wages and dearness allowance and 
in doing so relied not merely on the convention that the existing 
emoluments of workmen should not be reduced to their prejudice 
but also on other considerations which were neither invalid nor 
unwarranted by the evidence, its decision was ·valid in law. 
Held, further, that this court would be normally reluctant to 
entertain an objection 
that any consideration 
on \vhich 
the 
Appellate Tribunal had relied was either invalid or unwarranted 
by the evidence on record. Where it finds that certain payments 
\Vere in fact not gratuitous but were in substance part of the 
wages an

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