C.W.P. No.16850 of 2001 (O&M) -1-
IN THE HIGH COURT FOR THE STATES OF PUNJAB AND
HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH
C.W.P. No.16850 of 2001 (O&M)
Date of Decision:10.09.2009
Central Bank of India
.....Petitioner
Versus
The Presiding Officer Central Government, Industrial Tribunal-cum-
Labour Court, Chandigarh another.
...Respondents
Present: Mr. Girish Agnihotri, Sr. Advocate
with Mr. Arvind Singh, Advocate
for the petitioner.
Mr. D. S. Nalwa, Advocate
for Mr. Vivek Sharma, Advocate
for respondent No.2.
CORAM:HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN
1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see
the judgment ? No.
2. To be referred to the Reporters or not ? No.
3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? No.
-.-
K. KANNAN J.(ORAL)
1. The writ petition challenges the direction of the Labour
Court accepting the reference and favours the workman with a finding
that the order of dismissal was unjustified. The lesser punishment has
awarded by the Labour Court was witholding of two increments with
cumulative effect, while directing reinstatement.
2. The gravanan of charge was that the workman had been
entrusted Rs.778.02/- by the Manager of the Bank for payment of
telephone bill raised against the branch office Adalat Bazar, Patiala.
The workman had undertaken to deposit the sum but did not do so.
C.W.P. No.16850 of 2001 (O&M) -2-
The telephone connection had been disconnected for a shortwhile,
before reconnection on payment of charges by the Bank. A charge-
sheet had been issued against the workman and the workman had by
that time deposited the amount of Rs.778.02/- to the Bank. In the
inquiry, he pleaded that he was admitting the misconduct and also
pleaded that he had blemishless service and he could be visited with
lesser punishment. He purported to rely on regulation 19.12 sub-
clause ‘e’ which provided that an inquiry need not be held if the
employee made a voluntary admission of his guilty in his reply to the
show cause notice. The workman was evidently acting on an
assumption that in all cases, an inquiry would become unnecessary if
voluntary admission of guilt had been made and therefore he pleaded
for a lesser punishment.
3. The Inquiry Officer gave a report stating that in view of the
admission of the misconduct, the charge against the workman had
been taken as true and the management ultimately took a decision to
dismiss him from the service on the report of the inquiry officer.
4. The workman had challenged the order of dismissal by
seeking a reference before the Labour Court. He sought to prove that
the inquiry officer was wrong in assuming that he had admitted to the
misconduct himself. The admission was qualified in one sense that
the workman did not want the continuance of an inquiry and he was
pleading for a lesser punishment due to the fact that an amount of
Rs.778.02/- had not been used by him but he had handed over the
amount and the bill to his friend for depositing the same but he did not
deposit the same. However, the amount had been redeposited by the
C.W.P. No.16850 of 2001 (O&M) -3-
workman on 11.4.1985, following a letter given to the manager of the
bank on the previous day on 10.4.1985. The charge-sheet itself had
been issued subsequently on 15.11.1985. The contention of the
workman was that an inquiry officer went on wrong assumption that
he had admitted the guilt. According to the workman, though the
money which had been entrusted to him had not been utilised for
payment of the telephone bill by him he was under the belief that his
friend to whom the money was entrusted could have paid.
Significantly, in this case the inquiry officer did not reject the
explanation offered by the workman as false. The Labour Court found
that the workman had been actually cross-examined by the
representative of the management and that the workman had also
admitted of the facts in the cross-examination relating to the
misconduct and did not desire the continuation of departmental
inquiry. However, the Labour Court reasoned that if the management
wanted to punish him with penalty of dismissal, the departmental
inquiry must have been held by the management. The Court further
observed that facts and gravity of the misconduct committed by the
workman was not so grave that required a penalty of dismissal. He
invoked powers of the Court under Section 11-A of the Industrial
Disputes Act, 1947 and decided to substitute the above mentioned
punishment.
5. Learned counsel appearing for the management contends
that when there was a clear finding even by the Labour Court that the
workman had admitted to the guilt. The misconduct attributed to the
workman which was misappropriation, was serious enough to confirm
C.W.P. No.16850 of 2001 (O&M) -4-
the punishment of dismissal and the Labour Court ought not to have
interfered with the punishment. Learned counsel also refers to a
decision of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Janatha Bazar (South
Kanara Central Cooperative Wholesale Stores Ltd.) and others
Vs. Secretary, Sahakari Noukarara Sangha and others reported in
(2000) 7 Supreme Court Cases 517. The Court held in that case of
misappropriation of the value of goods amounting to Rs.24,239.97
and Rs.19,884.06 during the period of 1977-78 were serious enough
and the Labour Court’s intervention for a lessor punishment by
invoking the provision of Section 11-A was misplaced. In case of
proved misappropriation, the Hon’ble Supreme Court held that there
was no question of considering the past reocrd. It is the discretion of
the employer to consider the same in appropriate cases but the Labour
Court cannot substitute the penalty imposed by the employer in such
cases.
6. In this case, if the inquiry officer had held that the
explanation offered by the workman that he had entrusted the money
to his friend and that he did not make the payment as he had requested
to him was false and that he had retained the money, it could be said
that the charge of misappropriation was clearly established. In this
case, there was no such finding by the inquiry officer. On the other
hand, he was entering a finding of guilt by the so called admission of
the workman which was taken in a truncated form by the inquiry
officer. It is a fundmental precept of the law of evidence that an
admission in order to be binding shall be taken as a whole and shall
not taken piecemeal. If the workman had stated that he had entrusted
C.W.P. No.16850 of 2001 (O&M) -5-
the money to another person and that he had not utilised it for his own
purpose, then, if such statement was true at best, it could have been
only taken as a negligent act. It was after all open to the inquiry
officer to reject such a statement. On the other hand, the inquiry
officer accepted the statement but misconstrued it as an admission of
misconduct and went ahead to return a finding of guilt and that the
charges had been fully established. Learned counsel appearing for
the Management wanted to contend that the workman had actually
admitted the misconduct and desired lesser punishment. In my view,
the admission of misconduct must be understood in the context of how
the admission was tendered before the inquiry officer or before the
Manager of the Bank. The workman did not go the whole hog and
state that the entire misconduct attributed to him was admitted by him.
On the other hand, the admission was for a plea for lesser punishment
without having to go through the trauma of a trial and laced with a
plea that he had given the money to his friend and expected him to
make the remittence. At least when a dispute was raised and the
proceedings were before the Labour Court, if the management had
offered to prove the misconduct and established that the so called
entrustment as pleaded by him to be not true, the Labour Court could
have examined such evidence. The management did not avail of such
an opportunity. It rest contended with producing the inquiry officer’s
report and the document filed before him.
7. While the Courts intervention in the matter of punsihment
even invoking powers under Section 11-A of the Industrial Disputes
Act, 1947 are limited to the parameters set under the said section
C.W.P. No.16850 of 2001 (O&M) -6-
itself, the Labour Court would be justified in an appropriate case to
interfere with lesser punishment if it finds that the admission of
misconduct was laced with other mitigating factor as well. Here was a
case where workman was not completely disowning his lapse. He was
aware that he had received the money and he did not himself make the
remittence for the telephone bill. He claimed that he had entrusted it
to another person who did not make the payment. If that statement
must be rejected, it shall be found in the report of the inquiry officer
himself. Such a definite finding was not available. The Labour Court
was, therefore, justified in interfering with the punishment, that for a
person who had been negligent in his conduct ought not to have been
visited with the maximum punishment of dismissal from service. The
intervention which the Labour Court made, in my view, does not
suffer from any vice for being subjected to judicial review under
Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India.
8. The award of the Labour Court modifying the punishment in
the way it did, in the circumstances, would require no interference. It
is confirmed and the writ petition is dismissed. There shall be
however no direction as to costs.
( K. KANNAN )
JUDGE
September 10, 2009
ashish