IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.8664 of 1990 (O&M) Date of decision:31.03.2011 Sant Lal Suhag ....Petitioner versus Haryana Seeds Development Corporation Limited ....Respondent CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Mr. Sudhir Aggarwal, Advocate, for the petitioner. None for the respondent. ---- 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 petitioner challenges a recovery action initiated by the Haryana Seeds Development Corporation where the petitioner was working in the sales counter. Admittedly, an amount of Rs.10,983/- was stolen from the sales counter at Siwani on 16.01.1987 and the petitioner himself had given a complaint to the police which was registered as a FIR. A memorandum had been issued on 09.06.1989 fixing the responsibility on the petitioner to make the payment and pointing out further to the fact that on each day, the collection was to be deposited and the same having not been done, the petitioner was bound to take the Civil Writ Petition No.8664 of 1990 (O&M) - 2 - responsibility for the loss. The reply to the notice by the petitioner was that he had sold the fertilizer on 14/15.01.1987, but he was pre-occupied with sewing and packing of fertilizers bags and in the rush of work, he did not have time to deposit the amount and the theft had taken place during the intervening night of 15/16.01.1987 resulting in loss of money. The attempt of the petitioner was, therefore, to say that he was a sincere employee and he had himself given the complaint about the theft and that it was not due to any negligence or misconduct on the part of the petitioner. 2. The case has to be viewed only from the point of view of whether there existed a breach of a directive of how the cash was to be dealt with, after sales, and if there had been such breach whether the petitioner would be entitled to show his bona fides in an action for recovery of some money. Clear and simple, the money was lost when the petitioner was responsible for the cash collected by the sale of products belonging to the respondent-Corporation. The explanation was that he was very busy in doing work and, therefore, could not deposit merely explained that there was no dishonesty, but result of a breach, all the same. The respondent was not after all treating the act as resulting in misappropriation which would have been a serious misconduct. On the other hand, it found that if the theft had taken place and the cash had been stolen, it was only because the money was not banked in the manner that it should have been done. I cannot accept the plea that since he had pressing work to do, he could not deposit the money. A person at the sales counter ought to take responsibility for the cash received by Civil Writ Petition No.8664 of 1990 (O&M) -3 - him and if there had been a violation of a directive, he must take the consequence for his lapse. It is not anybody's case that he was himself responsible for stealing the money. The recovery action initiated was non-stigmatic and imposed no penalty. The respondent sought to recover of what was lost by the petitioner himself. I do not find any error in the action of the respondent. The petition is dismissed. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 31.03.2011 sanjeev