Jay Engineering Works Ltd. v State of West Bengal

Facts

• During an industrial dispute, workers at Jay Engineering Works resorted to "gherao," physically surrounding and confining managers and supervisory staff within the factory premises, preventing them from leaving, as a means of pressuring the employer
• The legality of this form of protest, and whether it was protected as legitimate trade union activity under labour law immunities, was challenged before the Calcutta High Court

Issue

1. Whether "gherao," involving physical confinement of management personnel by workers, constitutes a lawful and protected form of trade union protest, or amounts to an unlawful act outside statutory immunities.

Held

• The court held that gherao involves physical restraint and confinement of individuals against their will, and this amounts to wrongful confinement under the general law, a criminal offence, and a civil wrong
• Such conduct is not protected by the immunities conferred on registered trade unions for peaceful, lawful industrial action such as strikes conducted within legal bounds
• The right to protest, demonstrate, or strike does not extend to physically restraining or confining individuals; doing so crosses from lawful industrial action into unlawful coercion
• Participants in a gherao may be held liable both criminally (for wrongful confinement) and civilly, and cannot shelter behind trade union protections for this conduct

Ratio Decidendi

Gherao, involving the physical confinement of individuals by protesting workers, is unlawful and falls entirely outside the statutory immunities granted to trade unions for peaceful industrial action; it exposes participants to both criminal and civil liability under the general law.