Subject Matter of Jurisdiction of an Industrial Tribunal

The purpose of creating an industrial tribunal was to introduce compulsory adjudication where voluntary negotiation fails and the ‘appropriate government’ believes that the matter is grave enough to be referred to a tribunal. in order to work properly it was felt by the legislature to limit the jurisdiction of such tribunal or courts. As a result two schedules were created. While the intention of legislation has been to create a level playing field industries have tried to evade jurisdiction of the tribunal by taking recourse to quibbling minute points of law. It became necessary to plug all holes in this welfare legislation. As a result Section 10 is one of the most amended sections with the largest number of state amendments. This has meant that over the years the jurisdiction of tribunals has had to be interpreted a number of times.