"the Company") has filed this appeal, by special leave, against an order passed by the Chief Labour Commissioner (Central) under section 6 of the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act") as an appellate authority, granting partially an application made under section 10 of the Act presented on beha!.f of the respondent, Shahdara-Saharanpur Railway Workers' Union. The first draft Standing Orders submitted by the Company to the Certifying Officer under s. 4 of the Act were certified by him on 7 / 8-8-1962, rufter deciding objections that had been filed on behalf of the workmqn. In appeal, the Chief Labour Commissioner (Central), New Delhi, modified those Standing Orders to some extent by his order dated 12th February, 1963. Subi;equently, these certified Standing Orders were modified by the order dated 28th December, 1963 passed by the Certifying Officer, and the appeal against his orders of modification was dismissed on the 23rd April, 1964. Then, on 25th April, 1965, an application was presented under s. 10(2) of the Act on behalf of the respondent seeking. modifications in a number of Standing Orders as they stood a.fter original certification and first modification. The Certifying Officer passed his orders . on this application and, against those orders, the respondent filed an appeal before the Chief Labour Commissioner (Central), New Delhi. The Chief Labour Commissioner, by his order dated 27th October, 1967, allowed modifications in a number of Standing Orders. The present appeal is directed against this order and challenges the modifications granted in Standing Orders Nos. 9(a), 12(A), ll(ix), ll(vii) and 13. The main ground urged by the Company before this Court in support of this appeal was that the Chief Labour Commissioner was not justified in directing modifications in the Standing Orders, already certified, in the absence of fresh :material or fresh facts on the basis of which alone he was entitled to grant modifications under s. 1 O of the Act. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the Company in the alterc native, also put forward the r>lea that on principles analogous to the rule of res judicata it should be held that the Chief Labour. Commissioner had no jurisdiction to grant these modificatfons under s. I 0 in. view of the previous decisions given when the Standing Orders were originally certified and modified for the first time.
