Bombay High Court imposes ₹2L costs on Adani Electricity for disputing applicability of Maharashtra Industrial Relations Act

The Bombay High Court on Friday imposed costs of ₹2 lakh on Adani Electricity Mumbai Limited while dismissing its plea challenging the applicability of provisions of the Maharashtra Industrial Relations (MIR) Act [Adani Electricity Mumbai Ltd. v. Chief Conciliator & Ors.].The MIR Act is an Act to regulate relations of employers and employees, to make provision for settlement of industrial disputes and to provide for certain other purposes.The Court held that the petition was devoid of merits since the Act is applicable to Adani Electricity and it therefore, imposed costs on the company for dragging out a litigation with a workers union."The writ petition being devoid of merit, stands dismissed. The petitioning company (Adani) shall bear costs of this proceeding assessed at ₹2 lakhs to be paid to the Union within three (3) months from date," a Bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice MS Karnik ordered. .The facts of the case were that Mumbai Electric Workers Union (MEWU) had issued a demand letter dated June 2018 seeking discussion on charter of demands under the MIR Act.The demand not having been accepted, MEWU approached Chief Conciliator under the Act for consideration. However, the conciliation proceedings failed. The dispute was then referred to the Industrial Court and the reference was registered by the Industrial Court on September 21, 2019. MEWU also filed an application for interim relief seeking an order of restraint on Adani from negotiating and signing settlement with any other MEWU.After Adani filed a reply, the Industrial Tribunal passed an interim order restraining the company from negotiating, discussing or settling the demands involved in the reference with any union other than the MEWU.Aggrieved by the order, Adani approached the Bombay High Court invoking its writ jurisdiction to have the proceedings before the Industrial Court quashed..Adani contended that the MIR Act did not cover industries like Adani which were involved in both generation and supply of electricity in Mumbai.It relied upon notifications dated April 26, 1984 and July 26, 2019 to buttress its argument that Adani is not covered by the MIR Act.The Union relied upon a notification dated September 14, 1959 which, according to them, was issued to secure applicability of the provisions of the MIR Act to an industry engaged in the generation and supply of electrical energy in the local area of Greater Bombay..After examining all notifications placed by the parties before it, the Court unequivocally opined that the reference made under the MIR Act is certainly maintainable and the provisions of the MIR Act do apply to Adani.“We are of the firm view that the provisions of the notifications issued under the MIR Act were so unambiguously clear that at no time in the past either BSES Ltd. or M/s. Reliance Energy Limited or M/s. Reliance Infrastructure Limited ever chose to raise a point in course of proceedings initiated under the MIR Act that the provisions thereof did not apply to it and that the present effort on the part of the petitioning company … is an effort to tire out the members of the MEWU in their battle with the petitioning company (Adani),” the Bench reasoned..The Court also held that the Industrial Tribunal had jurisdiction to decide the reference.In light of this observation, the High Court encouraged the Industrial Court to decide the reference in accordance with law as well as all connected applications at the earliest without acceding to any unnecessary prayer for adjournment made by either party before it..Senior Advocate JP Cama with Advocates Avinash K Jalisatgi, Vaibhav Jagdale, RN Shah and Siddhesh S Shetye appeared for Adani Electricity.Additional Government Pleaders Himanshu B Takke and Manish Upadhye appeared for State.Senior Advocate AV Bukhari with Advocates Kishorekumar S Shetty, BV Bukhari and Fauzia T Bukhari appeared for MEWU.[Read Judgment]