LexTHE BURMAH-SHELL REFINERIES LIMITED versus THEIR WORKMEN
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3.S.C.R. SUPREME COURT REPORTS 669 THE BURMAH-SHELL REFINERIES LIMITED . "· THEIR WORKMEN. (P. B. GAJENDRAGADKAR, K. N. WANCHOo a.nd K. C. DAS Gul'TA, JJ.) Industrial Dispute-Payment of bonus to clerical stajf-Pro.ctice prevailing in oil companies-If must be paid lower rate than labour staff. Payment of bonus being based on the contribution of work- men to the profits of the company, that contribution, it is well settled, has to be taken foto consideration as a whole and it ·is not relevant to enquire which class or section of the workmen contri- buted how much to the profits. B1m• and Co., Calcutta v. Their Employees [r956] S.C.R. 78r and Baroda Borough Municipality v. Its Workmen [r957] S.C.R. 33, referred to. Looked at from that stand-point, it is not fair, in the absence of any overriding consideration, to make a distinction as to the rate of !)onus payable to different classes of workmen such as clerks and operatives, for it is ordinarily impossible to say which class contributed more to the prosperity of the industry than another. Nor can it be laid down as an inflexible rule that the. clerical and the labour staff must always be paid at the same rate. The Industrial Tribunals must have wide discretion in the matter, which this Court would be reluctant to interfere with unless arbitrarily exercised. Consequently, where the Industrial Tribunal, on a full con- sideration of the difference in the wage scales of labour and the clerical staff, came to the conclusion that it would be improper to award lower rate of bonus to the clerical staff who belonged to the middle class and suffered more than the labour staff from the rise of price, and there was nothing to show that .this was not so, the decision of the Tribunal was reasonable and must be upheld. CIVIL .APPELL A.TE JURISDICTION : Ci vii A ppea.l No. 250/1959. Appeal by special lea.ve from the a.ward da.ted Ma.y 18, 1958, of the Industrial Tribunal, Bombay, in Reference (I. T.) No. 106 of 1955. · M. O. Set,aJ.vad., Attorney.General for India, S. D. Vffhadalal a.nd I. N. Shroff, for the a.ppella.nts. Janarclan Sharma, for respondent No. I. 1961. February 1. The Judgment ofthe Court was delivered by February I. 670 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [19611 1961 DAS GUPTA, J.-This appeal by special leave Burmah-Shell arises out of an industrial dispute between the appel- Refineries Limited !ant company, and their clerical staff on the question v. of bonus for the year 1956. The demand of the work- Their Workmen men was for bonus equivalent to 8 months' total Das Gupta J. earnings of the year. The company resisted this demand mainly on the ground that there was in existence an agreement between the company and its labour employees-whereby bonus for the year 1956 had been settled at 4! months' basic wages, that the general practice in awards in the matter of bonus had in the past been to award or grant lesser amounts to clerical employees than to labour, and that in any case, to grant the same rate of bonus to clerical em- ployees and labour employees would be "to encourage or to invite strife and discontent." The Tribunal held that such an agreement as regards bonus for 19fi6 had been voluntarily entered into on behalf of the workers and was beneficial to them ; and was of opinion that the bonus to the clerical staff ought to be on the same scale. On the one hand, it rejected the clerical staff's claim for bonus at a higher rate than what the work- men were entitled to, as this "would lead to industrial discontent and strife", and on the other held that there was no reason to grant the clerical staff hon us at a lower rate. Accordingly it awarded bonus at the rate of 9/24ths of the basic wages, to the clerical staff, for the year ending December 31, 1956. Two contentions were raised in appeal. The first is that the Tribunal erred in awarding bonus without having recorded a conclusion as regards the existence and extent of the gap between the actual wages ( received by these workmen and the living wage. The second contention urged on behalf of the appellant is that the Tribunal erred in granting to the clerical staff bonus at the same rate as was payable to the labour staff, on the basis of the agreement, and should have granted bonus to the clerical staff, at a lower rate. The appellant cannot however be allowed to urge the first contention in this appeal because such a contention does not
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