IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.19602 of 2001 Date of decision: 11.09.2009 M/s Asahi India Safety Glass Limited ...Petitioner versus Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Gurgaon and another. ...Respondents II. Civil Writ Petition No.2943 of 2001 Inderjeet ...Petitioner versus Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Gurgaon and another. ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K.KANNAN Present: Mr. Pawan Kumar Mutneja, Advocate, for the petitioner. None for the respondents. ---- 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 ? ---- K.Kannan, J.(Oral) I. Civil Writ Petition No.19602 of 2001 1. The award under challenge by the management is a direction for reinstatement without back wages. The workman was charged of misconduct profiled in three instances: one, on 08.09.1993, when he was found sleeping during the night shift and a complaint had been given by one Anil Ahuja to his senior officer Mr. Neeraj Chandra. The second Civil Writ Petition No.19602 of 2001 - 2 - incident was that he was again found sleeping on 10.09.1993 and when the shift Superintendent Krishan Kumar woke him up, he abused him, apart from explaining that he was suffering from acute stomach pain. Krishan Kumar had given a compliant to Mr. Neeraj Chandra, who had called the workman from his house to enquire about the complaint on the following day on 11.09.1993, when again the workman was reported to have used abusive languages against the officer Mr. Neeraj Chandra also. 2. The charge-sheet had been issued to the workman on the 3 incidents set out above and he denied the charges. An enquiry was said to have been constituted and the Enquiry Officer found him guilty of the charges and the management took the decision to terminate him from service. This was challenged by a demand notice that was made the subject of reference for adjudication before the Labour Court. The Labour Court found the enquiry to be neither fair nor proper and the management offered to prove the misconduct before the Labour Court by adducing evidence. The Labour Court found that as regards the Ist incident on 08.09.1993, the complaint of Anil Ahuja reporting about his alleged misconduct attributed to the workman as having been found sleeping, the evidence of Mr. Anil Ahuja himself was not placed before the Court. The person, who received the complaint, alone had given evidence and admittedly had no knowledge that he was found sleeping. The Labour Court, therefore, found that in the absence of direct evidence of anyone having found the workman sleeping, the first limb of the charge had not been established. The Labour Court, while examining the evidence of the shift Superintendent Krishan Kumar, found that he had Civil Writ Petition No.19602 of 2001 - 3 - merely spoken about the fact that the workman had been found sleeping on 10.09.1993 and that he woke him up. He had not uttered even a single word about the so-called abuses heard against him in his evidence in the Labour Court. So also the evidence of Mr.Neeraj Chandra was no more than stating that he had called the workman and enquired him about the misconduct that was reported about him namely, of his being found sleeping on the night of 10.09.1993. He had also not made any reference in his evidence about any abuses as having been hurled against him. The Labour Court, therefore, found that the respective evidences only showed the workman was found sleeping and the explanation given by the workman that he had acute stomach pain was a lame excuse. Finding that there was no evidence relating to abuses alleged to have been heaped by the workman against the superior officers which alone would have been aggravating the situation, the Labour Court found that a single misconduct of a person being found sleeping ought not to be visited with a severe penalty of dismissal from service. It is not merely a case where the management witnesses had not reproduced before the Labour Court the actual epithets employed against them. There was not even a mention that there was even a word of abuse uttered by the workman in the evidence of the management witnesses before the Labour Court. The Labour Court was, therefore, perfectly justified in coming to the conclusion that the only misconduct proved was that he was found sleeping on 10.09.1993. 3. The Labour Court therefore was inclined to interfere even with the punishment imposed under the powers available to it under Civil Writ Petition No.19602 of 2001 - 4 - Section 11-A of the Industrial Disputes Act and directed reinstatement with continuity of service and denied to the workman the back wages. The Labour Court had approached the whole case in a proper manner and there is nothing amiss in the order of the Labour Court to suffer an intervention. The Civil Writ Petition No.19602 of 2001 is, therefore, dismissed. There shall be, however, no directions as to costs. II. Civil Writ Petition No.2943 of 2001 4. The workman has filed his own writ petition i.e. Civil Writ Petition No.2943 of 2001 impugning the punishment of denial of back wags for a portion of the charge that had been established. The Labour Court had considered that the proper punishment would only be to deny him the back wages. It has exercised its discretion properly and I find no reason to interfere with the punishment which is challenged by the workman in his writ petition. The writ petition filed by the workman is also dismissed in the above circumstances. The award of the Labour Court is sustained in full and both the writ petitions are dismissed. No costs. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 11.09.2009 sanjeev