Dejapada Das & ANR Vs. Union of
India & Ors [1980] INSC 76 (11 April 1980)
KRISHNAIYER, V.R.
KRISHNAIYER, V.R.
REDDY, O. CHINNAPPA (J) SEN, A.P. (J)
CITATION: 1980 AIR 2031 1980 SCR (3) 586 1980
SCC (3) 412
ACT:
Coal Mines (Nationalisation Amendment) Act
1976 (Act No. LXVII of 1976), Sections 3(3) and 4 scope of-Whether Section 3(3)
offends Article 14 of the Constitution in as much as in regard to Coal Mines
where mining is prohibited by that provision the workmen are left in the cold
while in regard to nationalised coal mines the workmen are taken care of and
benefits assured Private managements whether deemed custodians under Section 5
of the Coal Mines Nationalisations Act 1973.
HEADNOTE:
Dismissing the Writ Petitions, the Court,
HELD: 1. The provision contained in Section
3(3) of Act LXVII of 1976 is peremptory and the prohibition is mandatory
because there is punishment provided for contravention of that provision.
Breach of Section 3(3) is made punishable with imprisonment. The 1976 Act totally
prohibits working of any coal mines by any agency other than those which have
been set out in Section 3(3). Surely, there is no authority for the managements
under whom the present petitioners are alleged to be workmen to operate coal
mines in the face of the prohibition of the 1976 Act. Even for granting leases
and their renewal by the State itself, the frown and force of the law stand
four square between the mines and extraction of coal by any but the agencies
specified in section 3(3) of the 1976 Act [589F-G, 591A, B & C]
2. Investigation of the State or intimation
by the private managements are obligatory under the appropriate legislation and
in the absence of any intimation the presumption is that there are no such coal
mines as are set up before the Court. What apparently has been done, if at all,
is to do what has been described as 'scratching' that is surface mining of coal
bearing areas, destructive of the natural resources of the nation without any
thought for the morrow and without any reference to the planned, phased
programme of exploitation of coal for the benefit of the country in the public
sector. The mines, if any, are illicitly being operated, there being no
sanction of the law. It is precisely to prevent this mischief of slaugter mining
that s.3(3) was introduced and s.4 was enacted to make the activity punishable.
The proscription is comprehensive and the penalty makes it imperative. When it
is accepted that it is not permissible to operate these mines save by those
specified in the 1976 statute, it necessarily follows that workmen, genuine or
other, cannot claim any fundamental right to work these mines. [591D-G]
3. The prohibition of mining as under s. 3(3)
of the 1976 Act, is in the public interest and indeed, the scheme shows that wherever
public interest requires exploitation of coal mines it has been permitted in
the public sector and even in the private sector so far as certain specified
industries, such as iron and steel industries, are concerned. The ban is part
of a national policy, conceived for conservation of a vital national resource
and the wisdom of the regulation of 587 fuel sources and their planned user is
beyond argument.
Therefore, the language of s. 3(3) is
express, explicit and admits of no exception. An aware Court will not relax
when the language is peremptory, the legislation is charged with a critical
purpose and even the commiserative case of workmen-not wolves in sheep's
clothing, cannot override the larger cause of the nation. No nation, no
workmen. [591G-H, 592A]
4. It is audacious for the dubious
managements under whom the petitioners are supposed to be innocent workmen to
represent to the Court that they are "deemed custodians" working on
behalf of the Central Government. [592D-E] Under section S, notifications are a
sine qua non for custodianship, actual or deemed and absent such notification
taking over management no private agency can self-style itself as "deemed
custodian". Therefore, the managements other than those specified in
section 3(3) of the 1976 Act, cannot claim to extract coal from any coal mines.
If this be so, no one can claim as a workman, although in public interest,
although it is imperative that such operation should stop. [593E-F]
5. There is no violation of Article 14 of the
Constitution vis-a-vis the workmen concerned assuming them to be real workmen.
After the dismissal of the management's writ petitions, the argument that the
Act impugned is ultra vires vis a vis workmen is a daring legal workmanship. If
a larger Bench of this Court has already upheld the vires of a statute the
discovery of a new argument cannot invalidate that decision. That proposition
will make the binding effect of precedents, read in the light of Art. 141 a
vanishing cream once a novel thought strikes a legal brain. [593F-H] The
question of discrimination between two classes of workmen hardly arises because
one set of mines has been closed down validly. If the closure is valid, no one
employed there has a right to force it open on the score of discrimination. Denial
of lay-off or other benefits belong to a different jurisdiction. If any workmen
are really aggrieved that their interests are not protected and that their
future is in jeopardy, it is certainly open to them to make representation to
the Central Government for consideration of their lot, and certainly a welfare
State will give due consideration for such representation if it is satisfied
that the grievance is genuine. [594A-B]
6. Section 3(3) of the 1976 Act being
mandatory and having been held constitutional by this Court, it is no longer
permissible for any court in India to appoint a receiver or otherwise permit
extraction of coal or cooling coal. [594D-E]
ORIGINAL JURISDICTION: Writ Petition Nos.
1311, 1269- 70, 1113, 1109, 1479-1480, 924-925, 1478, 1250-1251, 1219, 926-927,
1072-1076, 1565, 1652-1654, 1434-1435, 1648, 1306- 1310, 13121314, 1590-1591,
1588-1589 of 1979 and 400, 192, 448 and 462 of 1980.
(Under Article 32 of the Constitution) A. K.
Sen and S. K. Sinha for the Petitioners in WP Nos. 1306- 1314/79, 1434, 1113,
1109, 1250-1251, 1219, 1072- 1076, 1565, 1652-1654, 1435/79 and 192/80.
588 K. N. Choubey and A. K. Srivastava for
the Petitioners in WP Nos. 1269-1270, 1590-1591, 1588-1589, 924-925, 926-
927/79.
M. P. Jha for the Petitioners in W.P.
1648/79.
A. K. Ganguli, for the Petitioner in W.P.
Nos. 1479- 1480/79.
Arun Madan for the Petitioners in W.P. No.
40()/80.
S. N. Jha for the Petitioners in W.P. No.
488/80.
K. N. Choubey and Mukul Mudgal for the
Petitioners in W.P. 462/80.
Lal Narain Sinha Att. Genl., M. K. Banerjee
Addl. Sol'.
Genl., and Miss A. Subhashini for the
Respondent Union of India, Central Coal Fields, Easter Coal Field in WP. Nos.
1307, 1310, 1312, 1314 and Respondent 3 in
W.P. Nos.
1308,1588, 1589, 1434, 1072-1076/79.
Lal Narain Sinha Att. Genl. and U. P. Singh
for the Respondents, State of Bihar and Its officials in W.P. Nos.
1588-89, 1434, 1109, 924-925, 1250-1251,
926-927, 1219, 1250-1251, 1072, 1290-91, 1648, 1479-80, 1073-1074, 1565/79 and
400, 192, 488 and 462/80.
Lal Narain Sinha Att. Genl. and Rathin Dass
for the Respondents (West of Bengal) in W.P. Nos. 1306-1314, 1073- 1074/79.
P. K. Chatterjee for the State of West Bengal
in W.P. 1072/79.
A. K. Srivastava for the Caveator/Respondent
No. 4 in W.P. Nos. 1652-1654 of 1979.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
KRISHNA IYER, J. 'Survival after death' is the expression that aptly describes
these writ petitions relating to coal mining by private agencies long after a
prohibitory legislation and an order by this Court repelling the challenges to
the vires of that Act. Parliament by the Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Amendment
Act, 1976 (Act No.
LXVII of 1976) (For short, the 1976 Act)
totally prohibited all mining of coal save by instrumentalities set out in s.
3, sub s. (3) which we may excerpt here:
(3) on and from the commencement of Section 3
of the Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Amendment Act, 1976.- (a) no person, other
than- (i) the Central Government or a Government company or a corporation
owned, managed or controlled by the Central Government, or 589 (ii) a person to
whom a sub-lease, referred to in the proviso to cl. (c), has been granted by
any such Government, company or corporation, or (iii) a company engaged in the
production of iron and steel shall carry on coal mining operation, in India, in
any form;
(b) excepting the mining leases granted
before such commencement in favour of the Government, company or corporation,
referred to in clause (a), and any sub-lease granted by any such Government,
company or corporation, all other mining leases and sub- leases in force
immediately before such commencement, shall, in so far as they relate to the
winning or mining of coal, stand terminated;
(c) no lease for winning or mining coal shall
be granted in favour of any person other than the Government, company or
corporation, referred to in clause (a) .
Provided that the Government, company or
corporation to whom a lease for winning or mining coal has been granted may
grant a sublease to any person in any area on such terms and conditions as may
be specified in the instrument granting the sub-lease, if the Government,
company or corporation is satisfied that- (i) the reserves of coal in the area
are in isolated small pockets or are not sufficient for scientific and
economical development in a coordinated and integrated manner, and (ii) the
coal produced by the sub-lease will not be required to be transported by rail.
It is obvious that the provision is
peremptory and the prohibition is mandatory because there is punishment
provided for contravention of that provision. Section 4(1) of the 1976 Act
makes a breach of s. 3(3) punishable with imprisonment.
This broad spectrum ban in law arrested the
extraction of coal and was naturally assailed as ultra vires by the managements
themselves in writ petitions under Art. 32. A bench of seven judges of this
court heard erudite and elaborate arguments, at the end of which the writ
petitions were dismissed. But it is not unusual for many litigants 'even though
vanquished, to argue still'. Here, however, the challenge and challenger are of
different colour. For, the petitioners before us 590 claim to be workmen who
are thrown out of employment on account of the 1976 Act and lament in this
Court that they are discriminated against and on that score the law is
violative of Art. 14 of the Constitution. The plea put forward is that in
regard to nationalised coal mines the workmen are taken care of and their
benefits assured, while in regard to coal mines where mining is prohibited by
s.
3(3) of the 1976 Act the workmen are left in
the cold. This is stated to be discrimination between workmen and workmen, thus
contravening the mandate of equality before the law.
Maybe, the writ missiles of the managements
proved damp squibs but the workers undaunted by that rebuff, want to try a new
weapon of ultra vires. The coal will go to the employers and the wages to the
workers.
The Union of India resists this relief and
contends that the writ petitioners are mere reincarnations of the old
managements which have fought and lost and are masquerading as workmen so as to
facilitate a second challenge. The State asserts that clandestine coal mining
mafia having been stopped, these racketeers are playing the maricha game
through bogus workers in tears. Without going into the merits of this averment
we may state that every other conceivable objection to the validity of the 1976
Act and other sister enactments had been urged in vain before the seven judges'
bench. Now the alleged workmen are complaining of discriminatory denial of
benefits to one class of workers. The Union of India counters this plea as
factually a ruse for clandestine mining operations by management and legally a
second battle after the legal Waterloo, hoping against hope that there is
nothing to lose in a gamble. Even if a spell of stay were got the gain will
outweigh possible losses in litigation. Indeed, the State's contention is that
considerable losses to Government and traumatic consequences on the nation are
being daily inflicted by such clandestine operations. The whole mischief
contemplated by the 1976 Act is being continued under the guise of invalidity
of the legislation and, alternatively, by going to court and getting receivers
appointed so that a legal colour is imparted to lawless depradations.
It is true that nationalisation of coal, as a
policy, has been evolved over the seventies. In the beginning, the management
of coal mines was taken over and at a later stage ownership itself vested in
the Union of India by virtue of ownership of all coal mines is the simple and
incontrovertible fact emerging from the bunch of legislation we have been taken
through. We are not going into the catena of enactments and their sequence
covering this question, because they are being discussed in greater detail and
fuller depth in the comprehensive judgment where reasons have yet to be given
but the result, by way 591 Of brief order, has already been announced. Suffice
it to say that the 1976 Act totally prohibits working of any coal mines by any
agency other than those which have been set out in s. 3(3). Surely, there is
authority for the managements under whom the present petitioners are alleged to
be workmen to operate coal mines in the face of the prohibition in the 1976
Act. There is a point of dispute raised by the Union of India that the
managements which have come up before this Court do not have even leases under
the Mines and Minerals (Regulation and Development) Act, 1957. This is
controverted by the other side but we may side-step that issue because it is
not essential for the decision of this case. For one thing, no such lease is
before us. For another, what is relied on in some cases is hukumnamas which
cannot do duty for leases. Even granting leases and their renewal by the State
itself as is asserted in a few cases, the grown and force of the law stand four
square between the mines and extraction of coal by any but the agencies
specified in s.3(3) of the 1976 Act.
It is common ground that there is no
specification of the coal mines in question in the schedule to the
nationalisation legislation of 1973, nor is there any specific notification
relating thereto. Investigation by the State or intimation by the private
managements are obligatory under the appropriate legislation and in the absence
of any intimation-none has been produced before us- we have to presume that
these are no such coal mines as are set up before us. What apparently has been
done, it at all, is to do what has been described as 'scratching that is
surface mining of coal bearing areas, destructive of the natural resources of
the nation without any thought for the morrow and without any reference to the
planned, phased programme of exploitation of coal for the benefit of the
country in the public sector. We are satisfied that on the materials placed
before us in all these cases, the mines, if any, are illicitly being operated,
there being no sanction of the law. It is precisely to prevent this mischief of
slaughter mining that s. 3(3) was introduced and s. 4 was enacted to make the
activity punishable. The proscription is comprehensive and the penalty makes it
imperative. Once we accept the position that it is not permissible to operate
these mines save by those specified in the 1976 statute it necessarily follows
that workmen, genuine or other, cannot claim any fundamental right to work
these mines. The prohibition of mining coal except as under s. 3(3) of the 1976
Act, is in the public interest and indeed, the scheme shows that wherever
public interest requires exploitation of coal mines it has been permitted in
the public sector and even in the private sector so far as certain specified
industries, such as iron and steel industries, are concerned. The ban is part
of a 592 national policy, conceived for conservation of a vital national
resource and the wisdom of the regulation of fuel sources and their planned user
is beyond argument.
therefore, the language of s. 3(3) is
express, explicit and admits of no exception. An aware court will not relax
when the language is peremptory, the legislation is charged with a critical
purpose and even the commiserative cause of workmen-not wolves in sheep's
clothing. as is asserted,- cannot override the larger cause of the nation. No
nation no workmen;
Assuming for a moment that the private
managements are, as Dr. Chitale and Shri A. K. Sen urged, deemed custodians
within the scheme of the legislative take-over, they are necessarily to operate
oh behalf and under the direction of the Central Government. Here is the
Central Government protesting, as stridently as it can, against the mining
operations by the alleged mine-owners. Both the State and Central Governments
are making common cause and demand that no deemed custodian need' work any mine
on their behalf. How can a surrogate custodian exceed the command of the
principal to stop mining ? The whole case of the Union of India is that a
clandestine cluster a sort of coal mafia which may even have got sham registers
of workmen-is defying Government and extracting coal on the sly. It is
audacious for the dubious managements, under whom the petitioner are supposed
to be innocent workmen, to represent to the court that they are 'deemed
custodians', working on behalf of the Central Government.
Nor are we prepared to accept the naive case
that the petitioners' employers can be regarded as deemed custodians under s.
S. We may read s'. S of the Coal Mines nationalisation Act, 1973.
5. Power of Central Government to direct
vesting of rights in a Government company:- (1) Notwithstanding anything
contained in Sections 3 and 4, the Central Government may, if it is satisfied
that a Government company is willing to comply, or has complied, with such
terms and conditions as that Government may think fit to impose, direct, by an
order in writing, the right, title and interest of an owner in relation to a
coal mine referred to in Section 3, shall; instead of continuing vest in the
Central Government, vest in the Government company either on the date of
publication of the direction or on such earlier or later date (not being a date
earlier than the appointed day), as may be specified in the direction.
593 (2) Where the right, title and interest
of an owner in relating to a coal mines vest in a Government company under
sub-section (1), the Government company shall on and from the date of such
vesting, be deemed to have become the lessee in relation to such coal mine as
if a mining lease in relation to the coal mine had been granted to the
Government company and the period of such lease shall be the entire period for
which such lease could have been granted under the Mineral Concession Rules;
and all the rights and liabilities of the Central Government in relation to
such coal mine shall, on and from the date of such vesting, be deemed to have
become the rights and liabilities, respectively, of the Government company.
(3) The provisions of sub-section (2) of
section 4 shall apply to a lease which vests in a Government company as they
apply to a lease vested in the Central Government and references therein to the
"Central Government" shall be construed as references to the
Government company. D The notification required under s. 5 authorising the mine
to be worked, is admittedly absent. No such notification exists or has been
hinted at or is existing. In the absence of the relevant notification
contemplated by s. 5, it is impossible to postulate 'deemed custodianship'.
There are scheduled mines or notified mines,
under the scheme of statutory management in the Management Take-over Act.
Notifications are a sine sua non for custodian-ship, actual or deemed and
absent such notification taking over management no private agency can
self-style itself as deemed custodian. It follows that on any view of the
matter the managements other than those specified under s. 3(3) of the 1976 Act
can claim to extract coal from any coal mines. If this conclusion is sound, as
we have demonstrated it is, the inference is irresistible that no one can claim
to extract coal as a workman, although in public interest, it is imperative
that such operation should stop. We hold that there is no violation of Art. 14
of the Constitution, vis-a- vis is the workmen concerned assuming them to be
real workmen. We have grave doubts about the veracity of this piece of
workmanship that the petitioner and others of their ilk are actual, not
imaginary. Anyway, after the dismissal of the managements' writ petitions, the
argument that the Act impugned is ultra vires vis a vis workmen is a daring
legal workmanship. If a larger bench of this Court has already upheld the vires
of a statute the discovery of a new argument cannot invalidate that decision. That
proposition will make the binding effect of precedents, read in the light of
Art. 141, a vanishing cream once a novel thought strikes a legal brain.
594 The question of discrimination between
two classes of workmen hardly arises because one set of mines has been closed
down validly. If the closure is valid, no one employed there has a right to
force it open on the score of discrimination. Denial of lay-off or other
benefits belong to a different jurisdiction. If any workmen are really
aggrieved that their interests are not protected and that their future is in
jeopardy, it is certainly open to them to make representation to the Central
Government for consideration of their lot, and certainly a welfare State will
give due consideration for such representation if it is satisfied that he
grievance is genuine. We dismiss the Writ Petition with costs.
It has been mentioned on more than one
occasion in this court that interlocutory orders have been passed, that
Receivers have been appointed by civil courts, including High Courts, and that
working of mines is licitly going on.
In the face of the all-pervasive statutory
prohibition which is peremptory in language and punishable in consequence, it
is surprising that any Receiver could at all dare to work mines. While we
disapprove of that conduct we make it perfectly plain that there will be no
more sanction for any receiver or other officer of court to extract coal or
coking coal from any mine in India. Section 3(3) of the 1976 Act being
mandatory and having been held constitutional by this Court, it is no longer
permissible for any court in India to appoint a receiver or otherwise permit
extraction of coal or cooking coal. We vacate all interim orders forthwith It
may be fair to the learned Attorney General, whose hunch we share to state that
this wealth of "workers" writ petitions is a kind of litigative
puppetry, the illicit mine exploiters being the puppetteers and those who
figure as worker petitioners being the puppets.
S.R. Petitions dismissed.
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