Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Act, 1942

Amendment of section 39 of the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1927.

3.—(1) In this section—

the expressions “authorised undertaker”, “former undertaker”, and “new undertaker” have the same meanings as they respectively have in section 39 of the Principal Act;

the expression “transferred employee” means a person transferred (whether before or after the passing of this Act) by virtue of sub-section (9) or sub-section (11) of the said section 39 from the employment of a former undertaker to the employment of the Board;

the word “consent” includes sanction, concurrence, approval, and other similar acts;

references to a judgment of the High Court shall, where such judgment was the subject of an appeal to the Supreme Court, be construed as referring to that judgment as affirmed or varied by the Supreme Court or, if the said judgment was reversed by the Supreme Court, to the order of the Supreme Court.

(2) This section applies to the following acts and the expression “act to which this section applies” shall in this section be construed accordingly, that is to say:—

(a) employing, suspending, dismissing, or retiring a transferred employee;

(b) fixing or varying the conditions of employment, duties, or remuneration of a transferred employee;

(c) granting or refusing to grant a superannuation pension or gratuity to a transferred employee or fixing or varying the amount of any such pension or gratuity.

(3) It is hereby declared and enacted that where, on the acquisition (whether before or after the passing of this Act) under section 39 of the Principal Act of the undertaking of an authorised undertaker, the Board constituted or constitutes itself to be the new undertaker, the expression “the same terms” where it occurs in sub-section (9) or in sub-section (11) of the said section 39 does not and never did include any term (whether statutory or contractual) whereby the former undertaker is or was precluded from doing, without the consent of a Minister or some other person, any act to which this section applies or one or more particular such act or acts.

(4) The Board has and always had power to do any act to which this section applies without the consent of a Minister or any other person.

(5) No act to which this section applies done by the Board (whether before or after the passing of this Act) shall be or, in the case of any such act done before the passing of this Act, ever have been invalid or capable of being questioned on the ground of the absence of the consent of a Minister or any other person.

(6) Whenever the Board does in relation to a transferred employee an act to which this section applies, the following provisions shall (notwithstanding anything contained in the foregoing sub-sections of this section) apply and have effect, that is to say:—

(a) such transferred employee may, not later than one month after the date on which such act was done by the Board, apply to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health for the annulment of such act;

(b) the said Minister shall consider every such application and shall, as he shall think proper having regard to all the circumstances of the case, either annul or confirm the act which is the subject of such application;

(c) whenever the said Minister annuls under this sub-section an act to which this section applies, such act shall be annulled as on and from the date on which it was done and the transferred employee affected shall, so far as may be practicable, be placed in the same position as he would have been in if such act had never been done;

(d) the said Minister shall not annul under this sub-section an act to which this section applies without giving the Board a reasonable opportunity of making representations in regard to such act or without considering the representations (if any) made by the Board;

(e) where a transferred employee applies to the said Minister under this sub-section, the act to which such application relates shall, notwithstanding such application, be valid and effective unless and until it is annulled by the said Minister under this sub-section.

(7) This section shall not operate to invalidate any judgment of the High Court pronounced before the 17th day of July, 1942, declaring the dismissal of a transferred employee by the Board to have been invalid for want of the consent of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, nor shall this section apply to, prejudice or affect any proceedings in the High Court to recover from the Board arrears of salary which were instituted before the 17th day of July, 1942, by a transferred employee in respect of whom such judgment and declaration was so pronounced and made by the High Court.

(8) It shall be lawful for the Board to pay to the plaintiff in any proceedings by a transferred employee against the Board which were instituted in the High Court or the Circuit Court before the 17th day of July, 1942, and were grounded on the want of the consent of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health to an act to which this section applies the taxed costs as between party and party incurred by such plaintiff in those proceedings before the said 17th day of July, 1942.