| Shortly after the extension of the age of retirement from 55 to 58 subject to the employee passing a medical examination at 55 in the respondent company 's Head Office at Calcutta, their workmen at Bombay branch raised an industrial dispute claiming the extension of their age of retirement from 55 to 60. |
| The dispute was referred to the Industrial Tribunal. |
| The company resisted the claim but was agreeable to introduce similar provisions as introduced at Calcutta. |
| The difficulty in accepting the company 's case was the conclusion recorded by the Supreme Court in its earlier decisions that the trend in Bombay region was to fix the age at 60. |
| So the Tribunal considered it to be its duty to enquire whether the conclusion recorded by the Supreme Court was accurate and ultimately persuaded itself to hold that no such trend was established in fact, and directed that the age of retirement should be 58. |
| Held: (i) After careful consideration of all the materials placed on this record, there was nothing to justify any doubt about the correctness of what was said on the earlier occasion by this Court. |
| The approach adopted by the Tribunal in dealing with this aspect of the problem is not very commendable and its present conclusion that what was said by itself on an earlier occasion and was confirmed by this Court in appeal, was in fact inaccurate, is on the whole unsound. |
| What the Tribunal has failed to notice is that instances which may justify a revision of the judicial opinion expressed on an earlier occasion about a particular trend must be strong and unambiguous and they must speak for the period both before and more particularly after the previous finding had been recorded in the matter. |
| (ii) The information furnished by the several documents on this record clearly show a consistent trend in the Bombay region to fix the retirement age of clerical and subordinate staff at 60. |
| Imperial Chemical Industries (India) Private Ltd. vs Their Workmen, ; and Dunlop Rubber Co. Ltd. vs Workmen ; , relied on. |
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