11 . The three years' period considered by the Supreme Court in Tarsem Singh's case was on the basis of a general limitation for recovery of a money claim. What was considered was that since the recovery period being considered by the High Court was in a writ petition, where the case was not covered by any particular article of limitation, the normal rule of limitation for recovery of money dues, i.e. limitation of three years, should apply unless there are extra-ordinary circumstances. Had the case been before an administrative tribunal, it would have been the particular article of limitation which would have applied. In the present case, since we are dealing with an unfair labour practice of not honouring a settlement between the employer establishment and its workmen, the period is of three months. Ordinarily, therefore, salaries and other emoluments payable for three months prior to the complaint can alone be considered for relief as a normal rule. The Industrial Court appears to have disregarded this law. It appears to have proceeded on the footing of a continuous cause of action. It ought to have instead considered each successive act of nonpayment as a separate injury and cause of action and proceeded to consider the successive acts as recurring causes of action. Going by that, as per the law stated in Tarsem Singh's case, enforcement of settlement could have always been ordered for future and as for arrears, they could have been ordered only for three months as per the limitation period ordinarily applicable. The court should then have considered whether and to what extent to exercise its discretion to go beyond this ordinarily applicable period, depending on good and sufficient reasons being shown for the delay This aspect of the matter, however, has not been addressed to at all by the Industrial Court, since it, as we have seen above, wrongly, treated the cause of action as a continuing one and gave relief on that basis. The impugned order of the court, thus, deserves to be quashed and the complaint remitted to the court for consideration of the period of recovery that is to say, how far to go back for ordering recovery of arrears.
