Book review of the book titled, “A study of Industrial Law” which is authored by Mr.G.M.Kothari.

 

Book review

The book titled, “A study of Industrial Law” which is authored by Mr.G.M.Kothari, is an excellent book for clarification of conceptual understanding of the provisions of labour legislations and Acts.

The book is written in English language. It has verbatim and interactive style and tone, which helps in creating interest and curiosity in the mind of the reader to keep reading it more and more, read the Act line by line till the end of each Act.

It is indeed a fairly voluminous book which deals about Industrial jurisprudence, development of Industrial and Labour Laws in India, settlement of Industrial disputes and covers more than 20 labour and Industrial Laws with its rules and a comparative paradigm of the changes in the enactments, the differences in the issues of same or similar clauses in various states or section of a particular aspect of an act in different states of India.

It is structured in such a way which connects the problems of law from the legal aspects as well as the problems of the industry at large, very coherently.

The layout of the book is in such a way that it reduces the burden of the reader to search for issues of similar aspects or problems that are handled in different sections which might be spread separately throughout the Act as the author has articulated the script so well that all the similar issues are clubbed together wherever the author found it possible to do so. The author not only has clubbed those sections together but at many places the author has also mentioned rules or multiple states on an issue, the relevant forms and related judgments together. This facilitates even a novice reader to comprehend the Act quickly and effectively as well as remember and relate the necessary clauses and its related case laws very comprehensively.

The content is structured in such a way that many aspects of a certain legal enactment are put forward briefly in the beginning of that chapter / Act and then the author goes on to explain those aspects elaborately wherever needed.

The uniqueness of this book is that it tries to answer the ‘why’s’, if each of the matter under discussion in a way since the evolution of the issue, most of the time.

The book is good for those who are motivated and inclined towards self study and self learning as well as while pursuing various academic degrees. This book is suitable while studying the syllabus of almost all universities of India for the degree level courses from the first year till the last year whenever the student has to study about Industrial and Labour Laws especially for the degrees of LLB , LLM or diploma courses on labour laws and even while studying the courses of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and Institute of Company Secretaries of India.

I need to admit that reading this book does require a certain amount of self motivation and a conscious effort to understand the intricacies of the matter that this book deals with. It is advisable if the reader keeps referring to the book of Bare Act that the reader is reading.

 The book in general deals with basic concepts of labour laws and its applications and this book has elaborately explained them in an interactive style.

Although the flow of the script of the text makes the reader get engrossed into it, the book is surely not a book that can be read during times of leisure or purely for pleasure.

 The key essential aspect that differentiates this book from some other books on labour laws is that it has many instances where similar situations and judgments in different states of India are compared as well as how a certain clause of a certain section which mentions about same or similar aspect is handled differently or presented differently in different state laws and judgments of a central Act at many occasions. Moreover, the author has dealt this aspect of analysis in such a manner that it does not lead to any confusion or chaos in the mind of the reader.

The only topic that I found missing in this book was that of a comparative study of the statutes namely Maharashtra recognition of Trade Unions and Prevention of Unfair labour Practices Act, 1971. (MRTU&PULP Act 1971) with the relevant provisions of the Fifth Schedule titled Unfair Labour Practices – Part 1 & 2 of the Industrial Disputes act,1947 and the Industrial Disputes (Bombay) Rules,1957.

This book has two major divisions. The first part deals with legislations related to Labour and Industrial disputes and the second part deals with legislations related to labour welfare and wage related enactments. Together, these two parts cover a major and important segment of the industrial laws of India.

The unique part that I have found in this book is almost a section by section comparative analysis of two related labour legislations with their rules, forms and penalties namely, The Industrial Disputes Act,1947 and The Bombay Industrial Relations Act,1946 which is also known as The Maharashtra Industrial Relations Act. The author has also compared the provisions of various State Shops and Establishments Acts where the reader can find ample illustrations of various judgments of various states on same or similar issues.

A plethora of varied kind of information is presented in a lucid manner which can lead the reader to an indepth understanding of this complex branch of law.

Besides covering almost the syllabus of the examination of LLB of various universities, the book can also be an asset and great use for the other professional examinations for the position of labour officers of various States and labour institutions.

It is of a great surprise that such a wonderful piece of legal literature has now gone out of print. I wonder what problems did the publisher namely the Eastern Book Company or Lexis Nexis and the author might have come across that led them to prevent publishing this book. According to me, there was no chance that this book could have gone out of demand.

Even though as on date many labour laws have got subsumed or repealed , the content of this book is so rich that it could have been used to make a comparative analysis on many aspects of  new labour legislations with regard to the pros and cons of the old versus new labour legislations. This is being said here by me in the wake of the fact that came to my limited knowledge that now new edition has come up since the year 2000 and it remains unavailable online as well as in law book shops as far as my limited search ends.