Previous Year Question

Option (d) is correct. The Trade Disputes Act, 1929 received the assent of the Governor-General on 12 April 1929. One of its basic purposes was to create a statutory mechanism for the investigation and settlement of trade disputes. Under the Act, the Government could refer matters connected with a dispute to a Court of Inquiry and could refer the dispute itself to a Board of Conciliation.

However, “a ban on strikes” should not be read as a complete prohibition of every strike. The Act did not make all strikes illegal. Under Section 15, employees in public utility services were subject to specified notice requirements before going on strike in breach of contract; a strike without the required notice was punishable. Similar notice restrictions applied to employers declaring lock-outs.

Further, Section 16 declared certain strikes and lock-outs illegal. These included action whose object was outside the furtherance of a trade dispute in the concerned trade or industry and which was designed to inflict severe, general and prolonged hardship upon the community so as to compel the Government to act or abstain from acting. Historically, therefore, the precise position is that the Act imposed serious restrictions on the right to strike and prohibited specified categories of strikes; it did not impose a blanket ban on every strike.

Option (a) is incorrect because participation of workers in industrial management was not provided by this Act.

Option (b) is incorrect because the Act did not confer unlimited or arbitrary powers upon management to suppress industrial disputes; instead, it created statutory machinery for inquiry and conciliation.

Option (c) is also incorrect. Although the Act created a Court of Inquiry, this should not be confused with intervention by an ordinary “British Court” in a trade dispute. The 1929 Act itself defined a “Court” as a Court of Inquiry constituted under the Act.