A Supreme Court Case We Can't Fully Read

Imagine a worker loses their job without warning. They go to a lawyer asking: What are my rights? Can I get my job back? Can I sue for unfair dismissal?

The lawyer pulls up a Supreme Court case from 1976—Herbertsons Limited v Workmen—hoping to find an answer. The case exists. It was decided on March 10, 1976. It appears in the official Supreme Court Reports (volume 2, page 15, citation [1977] 2 S.C.R. 15). But here's the problem: the full judgment text has vanished from public records. Only the case name and date remain.

This gap matters. It matters to workers. It matters to unions. It matters to anyone trying to understand what Indian courts actually decided about your job security.

Why This Case Existed in the First Place

In 1976, India was in turmoil. The country was under Emergency rule (1975–1977)—a period when fundamental rights were suspended and political opposition was silenced. It was also a time of intense labour unrest. Factories were striking. Trade unions were organizing fiercely. Employers were retaliating.

Courts became the battleground. Workers sued for wrongful dismissal. Employers challenged wage rulings. Someone at a company called Herbertsons Limited took a case all the way to India's Supreme Court.

We don't know the exact details—whether it was about wrongful firing, wage theft, unsafe conditions, or unfair labour practices. The publicly available record won't say. A single judge heard the case. That much is certain. But the reasoning? The facts? The decision? Lost.

The Law That Governed Workers Then

Before India's four new Labour Codes were written in 2019–2020, workers relied on older statutes. The main law was the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. It defined what counted as unfair dismissal. It set out when workers could be fired. It promised compensation when the rules were broken.

Supreme Court rulings on that Act shaped everything. A judgment could protect thousands of workers—or strip protections away. Judges decided whether a dismissal was lawful or illegal. They decided whether workers could organize. They decided whether employers had to obey labour laws.

Herbertsons Limited presumably fell under these rules. The case would have touched on at least one major question: What can an employer do to a worker, and what can a worker do in response?

Why Missing Judgments Are a Real Problem

Labour law works on precedent. When a worker is fired, their lawyer says: Here's what the Supreme Court ruled in a similar case. Here's why you should win.

But if the judgment is missing, this breaks down.

A worker injured at a factory, or terminated without notice, would have looked to cases like Herbertsons to understand their rights. Yet they couldn't read the actual reasoning. They had only a case name and a date. Judges in later cases couldn't properly follow the precedent because the precedent was invisible.

This creates injustice in disguise. It looks like the law exists. The official records show it was decided. But the content—the actual ruling—is inaccessible to the people it affects most.

We Still Live With This Case Today

The new Labour Codes (2019–2020) didn't erase the old law. Courts still cite cases from the 1970s and 1980s. They still ask: What did the Supreme Court say about unfair dismissal? About worker compensation? About union rights?

If Herbertsons Limited v Workmen is part of that foundation, we need to know what it says. We need to know if it helps workers or hurts them. We need to know if newer judgments have overruled it, confirmed it, or ignored it.

Right now, we can't answer any of these questions.

The Digitization Problem

Modern technology has made thousands of judgments available online. Legal databases now index cases going back decades. But older cases—especially from the Emergency period—remain partially missing.

Some judgments were never properly archived. Some were published in physical volumes that few libraries hold. Some exist only in the Supreme Court's own offices, requiring a personal visit to access.

For a labour journalist or a legal researcher trying to understand worker rights, this is maddening. The law that governs your job security rests partly on cases you cannot read.

What Needs to Happen

Courts should publish all judgments online, in full, and for free. Workers deserve to know what courts have ruled about their rights. Employers deserve clarity too. Judges need access to the precedents they're supposed to follow.

The Herbertsons case is just one example. Hundreds of important labour law judgments from the 1970s and 1980s remain partially lost. Digitization projects have made progress, but the work isn't complete.

Until the judgment is fully available, Herbertsons Limited v Workmen remains a ghost in the law—cited, perhaps, by lawyers and judges who've never actually read it. That is not justice. And it is certainly not transparency.