Litigant's Conduct Trying To Protract Proceedings In Industrial Disputes Must Be Deprecated: Delhi High Court Imposes ₹20K Cost On Hospital

The Delhi High Court has recently deprecated the conduct of litigants trying to protract proceedings in industrial disputes which involve “extreme disparity of resources available to the rival litigants.”

Justice Girish Kathpalia further imposed Rs. 20,000 costs on management of RB Seth Jessa Ram Hospital for prolonging hearing before an industrial tribunal in a dispute which was pending since 2009 and for further protracting the proceedings by approaching the High Court as well as by filing a stay application.

The Court said, “This is a classic case of efforts done by one of the litigants to protract the proceedings with the object of frustrating the other side so that the other side gives up. Such a conduct, especially in the industrial disputes, which involve extreme disparity of resources available to the rival litigants has to be deprecated.”

The Court was dealing with a plea moved by hospital management challenging the order passed by the industrial tribunal on November 05 imposing costs of Rs. 20,000 for seeking adjournment as the case was one of the oldest 20 matters pending before the judge.

It was the management's case that its counsel had only sought a pass-over, and thus, imposition of costs was completely unjustified. It was contended that the tribunal must also have kept in mind the fact that on five dates, the judicial officers presiding over the Industrial Tribunal were on leave.

Dismissing the plea with costs, the Court noted that the management was being represented by three authorized representatives before the Industrial Tribunal, out of whom one appeared on the first call and sought a pass-over, which was granted by the Tribunal.

The Court further noted that in the second call, two other authorized representatives joined the hearing through video conferencing and sought yet another pass-over on the ground that another matter of theirs was listed before the High Court.

“The learned Tribunal found it not possible to grant another pass-over, so declined the request and after recording the chief examination of two witnesses, offered the witnesses to both representatives of the petitioner management for cross examination. Despite that, those two authorized representatives refused to cross examine the witnesses and sought adjournment,” the Court noted.

It observed that the Tribunal justifiably imposed costs on the management which was to be paid to the witnesses who were present in the proceedings.

Justice Kathpalia also said that the Industrial Tribunal adopted a perfectly justified approach by first granting pass-over so that the witnesses would not go unexamined and thereafter offered them for cross examination by the authorized representatives of the hospital management and finally adjourning the matter with costs to be paid to the witnesses, who had wasted their day and were to come again.

“If the counsel for petitioner management could not maintain his diary, there was no fault of the witnesses who were being called again for their cross examination. Not only this, there is no explanation as to why out of three authorized representatives, the two who were present before the learned Tribunal chose not to cross examine the witnesses. It was a sheer harassment of the witnesses,” it concluded.

Case Title: R B SETH JESSA RAM HOSPITAL BROS v. R B SETH JESSA RAM HOSPITAL WORKMEN UNION

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Del) 1328

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