Questions relating to the application or interpretation of a standing order certified under the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 may be referred to

Correct — C, (c) Labour Court. The provision is section 13A of the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, headed ‘Interpretation, etc., of standing orders’, and it answers the question in its own words: ‘If any question arises as to the application or interpretation of a standing order certified under this Act, any employer or workman or a trade union or other representative body of the workmen, may refer the question to any of the Labour Courts constituted under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, and specified for the disposal of such proceeding by the appropriate Government by notification in the Official Gazette, and the Labour Court to which the question is so referred shall after giving the parties an opportunity of being heard, decide the question and such decision shall be final and binding on the parties.’

Three features of the section are worth holding, because each of them is a possible question in itself. First, who may refer: an employer, a workman, a trade union, or another representative body of the workmen — so an individual workman can set the machinery in motion himself. Second, which Labour Court: not any Labour Court, but one constituted under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 and specified for this purpose by the appropriate Government by notification. Third, the effect: the Labour Court decides after hearing the parties, and its decision is final and binding on them.

The choice of forum is not arbitrary, and the reason makes it easy to remember. Standing orders define the conditions of employment in an establishment — classification of workmen, shift working, attendance and late coming, leave, termination, suspension and acts constituting misconduct — so a question about their meaning is a question about the rights of individual workmen under those conditions. That is the Labour Court's territory under the Industrial Disputes Act as well: item 2 of the Second Schedule to that Act, which lists the matters within a Labour Court's jurisdiction, is ‘the application and interpretation of standing orders’, and item 1 is the legality of an order passed by an employer under them. The two statutes point to the same forum, from different directions.

Section 13A also does something the Industrial Disputes Act does not. Under that Act an industrial dispute normally reaches adjudication only when the appropriate Government makes a reference under section 10. Here the party goes to the Labour Court directly, without waiting for a Government reference — which is why the section exists at all. The same Act sends a second kind of question to the same forum: under section 10A, a dispute about the subsistence allowance payable to a workman suspended pending inquiry may be referred to the Labour Court, whose decision is likewise final.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)Industrial Tribunal — An Industrial Tribunal is constituted under section 7A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 and its jurisdiction is wide — on a reference by the appropriate Government under section 10 it may adjudicate a dispute relating to any matter, whether in the Second Schedule or the Third Schedule, so matters such as wages, hours of work, leave, gratuity, rationalisation, retrenchment and closure fall to it. The point is not that a Tribunal is incapable of construing a standing order in a dispute properly referred to it; it is that section 13A confers this particular jurisdiction, exercisable on the application of a party without any Government reference, on a specified Labour Court and on nothing else. When a statute names a forum, the named forum is the answer.
• (b)Labour Commissioner — The Labour Commissioner heads the labour department of a State and his officers do much of the day-to-day work of labour administration — inspection, conciliation, and functioning as the prescribed authority under a range of enactments. But the office is administrative and conciliatory, not adjudicatory, and a conciliator by definition cannot deliver a decision that is final and binding on the parties. Section 13A requires exactly such a decision, and it names a court to give it. This option is the most tempting of the three because the Commissioner is the official a party would in practice approach first about a standing order in dispute.
• (d)Industrial Employment Court — There is no Industrial Employment Court in Indian labour law. The name has been assembled from the title of the Act in the stem, which is a recognisable way of building a distractor: take words from the question and put them together into an official-sounding body. The adjudicating authorities under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 are the Labour Court under section 7, the Industrial Tribunal under section 7A and the National Tribunal under section 7B, with a Board of Conciliation under section 5 and a Court of Inquiry under section 6 alongside them. A body that appears on none of those lists does not exist.

The Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 was passed to end the uncertainty of employment conditions settled by custom or by the employer's unilateral will. Section 1(3) applies it to every industrial establishment wherein one hundred or more workmen are employed, or were employed on any day of the preceding twelve months, and allows the appropriate Government to extend it to smaller establishments after notice. Standing orders are the rules governing the matters listed in the Schedule to the Act — classification of workmen as permanent, temporary, apprentice, probationer or badli; the manner of intimating working hours, holidays, paydays and wage rates; shift working; attendance and late coming; conditions of leave; termination, suspension and dismissal; and acts constituting misconduct. Section 3 requires the employer to submit draft standing orders within six months of the Act applying to his establishment; section 4 fixes what the certifying officer may examine; section 5 governs certification; section 6 provides an appeal within thirty days; section 7 fixes the date from which they come into operation; section 9 requires them to be posted in English and in the language understood by the majority of the workmen; section 10 governs their duration and modification; section 10A provides subsistence allowance during suspension at fifty per cent of wages for the first ninety days and seventy-five per cent thereafter; section 12A deems the model standing orders to apply in the interval before certified ones come into force; and section 13A sends questions of application or interpretation to a specified Labour Court. The Act has since been subsumed, with the Industrial Disputes Act and the Trade Unions Act, into the Industrial Relations Code, 2020.

Key facts

• Section 13A, Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946: a question of application or interpretation of a certified standing order goes to a specified Labour Court, whose decision is final and binding.
• The reference may be made by any employer or workman or a trade union or other representative body of the workmen, without a Government reference.
• The Labour Court must be one constituted under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 and specified for the purpose by notification in the Official Gazette.
• Item 2 of the Second Schedule to the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 places the application and interpretation of standing orders within a Labour Court's jurisdiction; item 1 covers the legality of an order passed under them.
• Section 1(3) applies the Act to industrial establishments employing one hundred or more workmen, or which employed that number on any day of the preceding twelve months.
• Section 10A: subsistence allowance during suspension is fifty per cent of wages for the first ninety days and seventy-five per cent for the remaining period, where the delay is not attributable to the workman.
• Adjudicating authorities under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 are the Labour Court (section 7), the Industrial Tribunal (section 7A) and the National Tribunal (section 7B).
• The Act has been subsumed into the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, which raises the threshold for standing orders to establishments with three hundred or more workers.

Common traps

• Choosing the Industrial Tribunal because it sounds more senior. Section 13A names the Labour Court.
• Choosing the Labour Commissioner because he is the official a party would approach first. The section requires a decision that is final and binding, which an administrative officer cannot give.
• Accepting an invented forum built out of words taken from the question.
• Assuming a Government reference is needed. Under section 13A a party goes to the specified Labour Court directly.
• Confusing the certifying officer, who certifies the standing orders in the first place, with the Labour Court, which later construes them.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 applies to every industrial establishment wherein the number of workmen employed, or employed on any day of the preceding twelve months, is

  • (a)twenty or more
  • (b)fifty or more
  • (c)one hundred or more
  • (d)three hundred or more

  Answer(c) one hundred or more

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under section 10A of the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, a workman suspended pending inquiry is entitled to subsistence allowance for the first ninety days at

  • (a)twenty-five per cent of his wages
  • (b)fifty per cent of his wages
  • (c)seventy-five per cent of his wages
  • (d)his full wages

  Answer(b) fifty per cent of his wages