HC doubles cost imposed by single judge on NHRDF management

The Madras High court today doubled the cost, imposed by a single judge, on the management of the National Horticulture Research and Development Foundation, Dindigul, for "abusing" the process of law and wasting the time of the court in a case relating to industrial disputes.
Dismissing the appeal filed by NHRDF, a division bench of Chief Justice S.K.Kaul and Justice Nooty Ramamohana Rao, said the NHRDF Management had wasted the time of the court and abused the process of law by dragging the case against a workman P.Murugesan for more than six years, without settling the dispute.
The management desired to seek the assistance of a counsel for Murugesan, who wanted to appear in person with regard to the industrial dispute case against him.

The management then filed a case in the Labour court which said Murugesan could appear in person.The Labour court rejected the plea of the NHRDF management. They filed an appeal before the single judge who dismissed it. The appeal challenging the single judge order was also dismissed.
Then they filed another case questioning the validity of the Industrial Disputes Act wich empowered workmen to appear in person.That was also dismissed, the bench said.
They took the same issue before the Labour court,which rejected the appeal following which they filed the present plea in court.

The judges said the appellant had been dragging the case for more than six years. "This is gross abuse of process of law," the bench said.

Labour disputes do not see end of the day, and the workman was not getting any solution to his case, the bench said.
The patience of the workman had been tested by the management repeatedly raising the same issue. The main issue here was the industrial dispute between the workman and the management, the bench said, adding, instead of solving the dispute they had wasted the time of the court.
The single judge was right in awarding a cost of Rs.10000 on the management of the NHRDF, it said.
"The cost need to be doubled", the bench said. While Rs 10,000 should be paid to Murugesan,another Rs 10,000 should be paid to the mediation and conciliation centre at Madurai in 15 days,the judges said.