IN THE HIGH COURT OF KERALA AT ERNAKULAM
OP No. 6944 of 2000(B)
1. RAMASWAMY
... Petitioner
Vs
1. APPELLATE AUTHORITY
... Respondent
For Petitioner :SRI.P.RAMAKRISHNAN
For Respondent :GOVERNMENT PLEADER
The Hon'ble MR. Justice S.SIRI JAGAN
Dated :29/11/2007
O R D E R
S. SIRI JAGAN, J.
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O.P.No.6944 OF 2000
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Dated this the 29th day of November, 2007
JUDGMENT
The petitioner was an employee of the 3rd respondent
Company, who filed an application before the 2nd respondent
controlling authority under the Payment of Gratuity Act, seeking
direction to the 3rd respondent to pay gratuity under the Act. The
controlling authority computed the gratuity as Rs.40,005/- but
dismissed the claim on the ground that the amount has already
been paid, for which the petitioner had already issued a receipt.
The said order is Ext.P1. The 1st respondent appellate authority
upheld the order of the controlling authority by Ext.P2 order in
appeal. The petitioner is challenging Exts.P1 and P2 orders in
this writ petition.
2. The contention of the petitioner is that the receipt
relied upon by the 3rd respondent is a concocted one. According
to him, a complaint was filed by the 3rd respondent Company
before the Police alleging theft of tea leaves by the petitioner, in
respect of which the petitioner was called to the police station.
O.P.No.6944/2000 2
Originally they obtained a resignation letter under coercion and
later on he withdrew the same. Thereafter the petitioner was
again called to the Police station some time later and again a
resignation letter was obtained from him. He was also forced
to execute a receipt stating the same to be the receipt for
accepting gratuity, although the gratuity amount was not paid
to him. He submits that a bearer cheque for the amount of
gratuity was drawn up and after encashing the same, the same
was sought to be adjusted against alleged amounts due from
him, after obtaining a receipt from the petitioner for the
cheque amount. According to him, he was suspended from
service and he continued under suspension till the date of
superannuation and after the date of superannuation, he filed
claim before the controlling authority for gratuity. His
contention is that the documents relied upon by the
respondents are concocted documents to deprive the petitioner
of his legitimate dues.
3. The 3rd respondent would stoutly oppose the
contentions of the petitioner. According to the learned
counsel for the 3rd respondent, the documents produced by
them and relied upon by the lower authorities are genuine
O.P.No.6944/2000 3
documents executed by the petitioner. He points out that even
according to the petitioner the incident, which the petitioner
alleges to have happened under coercion, happened in
February, 1989 and the gratuity claim was filed only in 1995.
At no point of time between February 1989 and 1995 did the
petitioner raise any contention before any authority that he
had not resigned and that he was not paid the amounts
covered by the documents now produced by the 3rd
respondent.
4. The counsel for the petitioner would try to convince
me that the very situation in which the whole incidents took
place speaks volumes about the fraud committed by the 3rd
respondent on the petitioner to deprive him of his legitimate
claims.
5. I have considered the rival contentions in detail.
The petitioner has no case that between 1989 and 1995 he has
approached any authority either in respect of denial of
employment to him or in respect of any service benefits. He
never withdrew the resignation or sought to resile from the
receipt and other documents admittedly executed by him on
the ground that they were obtained under coercion. Although
O.P.No.6944/2000 4
he claims that he was suspended from service, he has no case
that he approached the authorities under the Payment of
Subsistence Allowance Act claiming subsistence allowance. He
does not dispute that the receipt relied upon by the
respondents has been executed by him. His only contention is
that it has been executed under coercion. If it was under
coercion, the normal thing he would have done was to retract
from the same at the earliest opportunity. In fact he himself
admits that on an earlier occasion he had done exactly that.
Therefore in the absence of evidence to show that the
petitioner had in fact retracted from the documents admittedly
signed by him, he cannot now raise contentions against those
documents. Respondents 1 and 2 have only relied upon the
documents by which the petitioner himself had admitted that
he had received the gratuity amounts in question. That being
so, there is no merit in this original petition and accordingly
the same is dismissed.
S. SIRI JAGAN, JUDGE
Acd
O.P.No.6944/2000 5