Business Standard

15,000 industrial dispute cases pending in Guj courts

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Our Regional Bureau Ahmedabad
Around 15,000 cases related to industrial disputes are pending in the industrial courts of Ahmedabad, while, on an average, 15 fresh cases are being registered every day.
"There are around 15,000 cases pending in the industrial court (IC) from all over Gujarat. Only six judges are there in the IC to handle the cases, while three government lawyers are there to look after several cases relating government. Daily an average of 10 to 15 cases are been registered in IC," said L B Kateriya, registrar of IC.
"The industrial cases are filed under three main acts which are Industrial Disputes (ID) Act, Bombay Relation (BR) Act and Employees State Insurance (ESI) Act. Above 50 per cent of the cases are been filed under ID Act," Kateriya said.
"Number of cases from Gujarat are been lying pending in different courts in Ahmedabad because majority of the people are not interested in settling their own cases," said D C Gandhi, a veteran industrial advocate in Gujarat.
"One of the remedies can be to get any industrial dispute legally and compulsorily referred to private arbitration. Arbitrators should be appointed by representatives of the workmen or union concerned on one hand and representatives of employees on the other hand with a provision of an umpire to be nominated prior to the arbitration agreement. Therefore , if arbitrators fail to resolve the disputes in the stipulated time frame the umpires decision should be deemed to be final and the decision should be made statutorily binding," said a senior advocate of IC.
"Majoriry of the cases filed in the IC are under the 'termination of employee' under the ID Act. Very few cases are been filed for the textile industries under the BR Act as the number of the textile industries has been reduced to 15 from 62," said Gandhi.
"The reason for the large number of cases pending is, 'the law itself cannot make the fast justice'. To make the proceedings fast and complete more number of cases in IC and other courts, the judges and parties both have to put their hands together for the settlement in matters or by withdrawal or according to the disposal on merits by the judges," he said.
"The High Court in Gujarat is taking further steps to speed up the proceedings. Despite this if the burden of cases increase then the HC will appoint more judges in IC," said Ashok Bhatt, state Law Minister.
"There are around 150 cases in IC and around 2,000 cases in LC, which are been rotated in respective courts on a daily basis. In IC, around 100 cases are been completed in a month, including around 40 cases by settlement between the parties and around 60 cases by disposal on merits by the judges. Similarly around 1000 cases are been completed in LC," said Gandhi.
"Compulsory adjudication as so prescribed by virtue of, procedure for solving the industrial disputes (section 10) under ID Act, 1947 has led to both the industry and labour getting litigation-minded while completely keeping aside the factor of human relations. The result is that the very purpose of the Act for resolving the industrial disputes expeditiously is no longer achieved," Gandhi added.


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First Published: Dec 31 2003 | 12:00 AM IST

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