RSA No. 2851 of 2008
IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT
CHANDIGARH
RSA No. 2851 of 2008
Date of Decision: November 27 , 2009
Jagan Nath ...... Appellant
Versus
The Punjab Small Industries &
Export Corporation Ltd. ...... Respondent
Coram: Hon'ble Mr. Justice Ajay Tewari
Present: Mr.Rajinder Goyal, Advocate
for the appellant.
Mr.Rajiv Malhotra, Advocate
for the respondent.
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1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment?
2. To be referred to the Reporters or not?
3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest?
Ajay Tewari, J.
This appeal has been filed against concurrent judgments of the
Courts below dismissing the suit of the appellant that recovery order dated
4.4.97 is illegal.
The undisputed facts are that the appellant was incharge of
receiving consignment and received a consignment which was not of the
requisite weight and thus admittedly caused loss to the respondent.
Recovery order in this regard had been challenged by way of the instant suit
which, as mentioned above, has been dismissed by the courts below.
The following questions have been proposed:-
RSA No. 2851 of 2008
a) Whether an alleged loss which has been made good by an
employee can be recovered from the employee by saying that
the alleged loss and the recovery which has been made good
pertains to different stations even though the profit and loss and
balance sheet of the respondent corporation is made one?
b) Whether once the order of punishment which is passed
upon an inquiry report is proved to be illegal, arbitrary and
discriminatory, can still be ignored by the civil court on the
ground that the civil court cannot sit as a court of appeal over
the inquiry and on the order of punishing authority?
c) Whether the case of an employee who has made good the
loss while working at one station of respondent corporation can
be said to be different and distinct from a case of another
employee who have made good loss by working at different
stations though the profit and loss account and balance sheet of
the respondent corporation is one?
d) Whether the impugned judgment and decree passed by
the learned courts below are illegal, void, suffers from material
irregularities and as such are liable to be set aside?
e) Whether while passing the impugned judgment and
decree, the learned courts below erred in law and fact, misread,
misconstrued and misinterpreted the oral as well as
documentary evidence available on the record as also the
mandatory and settled proposition of law?
Learned counsel has argued only questions No. (a) and ( c ).
The argument is that one Sh.M.P.Gupta who had also similarly caused loss
to the respondent was later on permitted to make good the loss by increasing
the price at which iron was sold to the customers. The argument is that the
appellant also subsequently made good that loss by selling iron at a higher
rate. In my opinion this argument is farfetched. An employee cannot be
allowed to make good loss which has been caused by overcharging
customers and the fact that such an illegal procedure was condoned by the
RSA No. 2851 of 2008
respondent in the case of Mr.M.P.Gupta would be no ground to give same
benefit to the appellant also.
Consequently holing questions argued viz. Questions No. (a)
and ( c ) against the appellant,this appeal is dismissed. No costs.
(AJAY TEWARI)
JUDGE
November 27 , 2009
sunita