IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH C.W.P.No.1211 of 2011 Date of decision : 21.1.2011 UCO Bank ....Petitioner Versus Presiding Officer, Central Government Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court-1, Chandigarh & another ...Respondents CORAM : HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE MAHESH GROVER Present : Mr.Aseem Rai, Advocate for the petitioner. ..... MAHESH GROVER, J. The petitioner has impugned the award of the Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court-1, Chandigarh vide which the respondent No.2, who had claimed a reference under Section 10 of the Industrial Disputes Act, has succeeded. The petitioner, which is a bank, had proceeded against respondent No.2 for dereliction of duty. The charge against the said respondent was that she was dealing with the FDRs of the Branch where she was working and on one occasion she failed to notice whether there was any lien on a FDR of the Bank or not while dealing with that particular FDR. An inquiry was held in which the respondent No.2 was held accountable and on account of that her pay was reduced leading to raise this dispute by her. The Tribunal has noticed that it was not a case of misconduct and it was probably a case of negligence or bona fide mistake and accepted her prayer C.W.P.No.1211 of 2011 -2- reversing the order of punishment. Aggrieved by the findings recorded by the Tribunal, in this petition learned counsel for the petitioner has stated that once the misconduct had been established, the Tribunal was wrong in replacing its opinion that it was a case of negligence or a bona fide mistake on the part of the respondent No.2. It is further contended that the dereliction of duty on the part of respondent No.2 stood adequately established and thus the Tribunal's award which is based on no material and no reasoning deserves to be set aside. After hearing the learned counsel for the petitioner, I am of the opinion that there is no infirmity in the impugned award. There is only a solitary incident of negligence/dereliction of duty against the respondent No.2. Beyond that there is no material to show that the respondent No.2 during her tenure of service was negligent. The only allegation being that she had not verified whether the bank was having any lien on the FDR while releasing it to a person can safely be attributed to oversight which the Tribunal has rightly appreciated. There being no wilful default on the part of respondent No.2, I am of the opinion that the Tribunal has not committed any error, more so when an incident of this kind could easily have been dealt with with a lesser punishment by the Bank. Having regard to the aforesaid, this Court does not find any infirmity in the award of the Tribunal. Consequently, the writ petition is held to be without any merit and is dismissed. 21.1.2011 (MAHESH GROVER) JUDGE dss