favour of the workman and permission to lead the evidence before the court as claimed by the employer has been granted. This is, therefore, a case where the employer itself asked for a permission to lead evidence in case preliminary issue is decided against the employer. In the light of aforesaid para 22 of the Supreme Court Judgment, the employer was expected to wait for the final decision in the complaint on merits, instead of challenging the same in Revision under Section 44 of the Maharashtra Recognition of Trade Unions & Prevention of Unfair Labour Practices Act. That was all the more so because this Court had remanded the matter to the Labour Court in order to give an opportunity to MSRTC to produce documents in support of the charges levelled and allegedly proved against the employee. Apart from the facts in this case, the pronouncement of law in para 22 of the Supreme Court judgment is loud and clear and it is unfortunate that the Industrial Court has not referred to the said decision, nor the parties before Industrial Court, but then it was expected of the Industrial Court to know the celebrated decision in the case of Cooper Engineering. There was one more factor, namely that the complaint [ULP] is pending before Labour Court from 1995, and, therefore, that was another reason the Industrial Court should not have entertained a revision against an order on the preliminary issue. It is, thus, clear that that the Industrial Court committed a serious error of law in not following the para 22 of the Supreme Court Judgment in the aforesaid decision.
