the same made it incumbent that both the parties jointly should send copies of the settlement to the appropriate authorities. It may be that the authorities mentioned in that Rule are not the concerned authorities as far as the present employee was concerned, still the authorities, i.e., Presiding Officer, Industrial Tribunal, and the Conciliation Officer and the Labour Commissioner should have been forwarded with the copies of the settlement jointly by the Workman and the Management which admittedly has not been done. In the rejoinder, the petitioner had taken up the plea that it was the Workman who had taken up the responsibility of sending the copies of the settlement to the said concerned authorities and if the Workman had not complied with the undertaking, the Management should not be allowed to suffer on that score. The question which arises for consideration is whether the said Rule 58 and Form ‘H’ have to be strictly followed before a settlement could be considered valid. Section 2(p) clearly contemplates a settlement to be executed in accordance with the rule and the form prescribed. So, Rule 58 and the Form – ‘H’ are statutory provisions which have to be given full effect before a settlement could be considered valid. Counsel for the workman has cited Workmen of Delhi Cloth and General Mills, Ltd. V. Delhi Cloth and General Mills Ltd., 1969 (3) SCC 32. The Supreme Court while noticing the provisions of Section 18(1) the definition of "settlement", as given in Section 2(p), clearly held that a plain reading of the Rule and the Form shows that the settlement has to be in compliance with the statutory provisions. In the cited case, it appears that the settlement was arrived at during the course of conciliation proceedings but as the settlement was not entered into with the concurrence of the Conciliation Officer and also as provisions of Rule 58(4) were not complied with, the settlement was held to be invalid. It is true that in the present case the settlement was not arrived at during the pendency of the conciliation proceedings, yet the settlement has to be in accordance with the statutory provisions before it can be held to be valid. It has been observed in this very judgment that the provisions of Rule 58 demand full compliance in order to clothe the settlement with a binding character.”
