Case: Babulal Nagar and Others Vs. Shree Synthetics Limited and Others

Nothing appears more well settled than that the extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 conferred on the High Court was a weapon forged to overreach injustice and secure and advance justice. When therefore, this extraordinary power is used to defeat justice and to promote technicality not only its raison detre is violated but it becomes a handy instrument for those to whom litigation cost is a luxury enjoyed at the cost of others and employed to exhaust and harass an unequal opponent. Sad as it may appear that unfortunate situation emerges in this appeal.2. The first respondent - Shree Synthetics Ltd. (respondent for short) appears to be a company governed bythe Companies Act, 1956. It has set up a factory at Ujjain where it manufactures polyester fibre. Appellants in each of these appeals were the workmen of the respondent. There is a trade union of the workmen employed by the respondent of which at the relevant time three out of the five appellants in this group of appeals were office bearers. Babulal Nagar was the President of the Union : Babulal Jaiswal was the General Secretary and Ramesh Chandra was the Secretary.3. According to the respondents on June 3, 1975 around 11.10 p.m. one Verma a workman of the respondent on the shift being over went out of the compound gate and took his seat in a tempo when Babulal Nagar and Babulal Jaiswal along with three other appellants approached him and asked Verma to alight from the tempo as they wanted to talk to him. On Vermas disinclination to come out of the vehicle, it was alleged that Babulal Nagar and Babulal Jaiswal pulled Verma out of the vehicle and all the appellants assaulted him with fists and kicks and felled him down as a result of which Verma sustained bleeding injuries on his head. On hearing the commotion, staff of the security department intervened and rescued him.4. Setting out these allegations a charge-sheet was drawn up and served on the five appellants followed by a composite domestic enquiry at the end of which all of them were dismissed from service.5. The appellants moved five different applications before the Labour Court questioning the validity of the domestic enquiry held against them as also the legality and propriety of the orders terminating their services. The Labour Court was of the opinion that the domestic enquiry was held according to the relevant rules and as there was evidence in support of the alleged misconduct the management was justified in imposing the penalty of dismissal from service and accordingly all the five applications were dismissed.6. The appellants filed five separate revision petitions before the Industrial Court under Sections 66 and 67 ofthe Madhya Pradesh Industrial Relations Act, 1960 (Act for short). All the five revision petitions were heard by the President of the Industrial Court at Indore who was of the opinion that the entire approach of the enquiry officer - Manager - in arriving at the findings of misconduct in his enquiry appear to be biased and unfair and that the conclusions are neither fair nor reasonable and as such the dismissal cannot be sustained on the basis thereof. Accordingly he, by a common judgment dated February 26, 1979, allowed all the revision petitions and set aside the orders of the Labour Court dismissing the applications and remanded the matters to the Labour Court for a fresh decision after giving both the parties due opportunity to adduce evidence in respect of the alleged misconduct.7. The respondent moved five separate miscellaneous petitions in the High Court of Madhya Pradesh, Jabalpur at Indore under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution questioning the correctness of the decision of the Industrial Court. A Division Bench of the High Court held that the Industrial Court exceeded its jurisdiction by interfering with the findings of facts and this was an error apparent on the face of the award. Accordingly, it issued a writ of certiorari and quashed the decision of the Industrial Court. Hence these five civil appeals by special leave.

Court's reasoning:
16. Section 66(1) of the Act provides that the Industrial Court omitting the portion not relevant for the present purpose, may call for and examine the recorded of such case and pass order in reference thereto as it thinks fit. If the Industrial Court has the jurisdiction to pass any order in reference to a case called for by it as it thinks fit, obviously it can come to a conclusion on the same set of facts different from the one to which the Labour Court had arrived. It was however urged that this jurisdiction of wide amplitude has been cut down by the proviso which provides that the Industrial Court shall not vary or reverse any order of the Labour Court under Section 66(1) unless - (i) it is satisfied that the Labour Court has - (a) exercise jurisdiction not vested in it by law; or (b) failed to exercise a jurisdiction so vested; or (c) acted in exercise of its jurisdiction illegally or with material irregularity. It was urged that these clauses so circumscribe and cut down the jurisdiction of the Industrial Court under Section 66 as to be on par with Section 115 of theCode of Civil Procedure. The main part of Section 61 (sic 66) clearly spells out the jurisdiction of the Industrial Court to pass any order in reference to the case brought before it as it thinks fit. The expression "as it thinks fit" confers a very wide jurisdiction enabling it to take an entirely different view on the same set of facts. The express "as it thinks fit" has the same connotation, unless context otherwise indicates, as he deems fit and the latter expression was interpreted by this Court in Raja Ram Mahadev Paranjype v. Aba Maruti Mali (1962 Supp 1 SCR 739 : AIR 1962 SC 753   to mean to make an order in terms of the statute, an order which would give effect to a right which the Act has elsewhere conferred. It this jurisdiction so circumscribed as to bring it on par with Section 115 of theCode of Civil Procedure ? Proviso does cut down the ambit of the main provision but it cannot be interpreted to denude the main provision of any efficacy and reduce it to a paper provision. Both must be so interpreted as to permit interference which if not undertaken there would be miscarriage of justice. Sub-clause (c) of the first proviso to Section 66(1) will permit the Industrial Court to interfere with the order made by the Labour Court, if the Labour Court has acted with material irregularity in disposal of the dispute before it. If the finding recorded by the Labour Court is such to which no reasonable man can arrive, obviously, the Industrial Court in exercise of its revisional jurisdiction would be entitled to interfere with the same even if patent jurisdiction error is not pointed out.17. Reverting to the facts of this case, the Industrial Court while hearing the revision petitions found that the petitioners were trade union workers an the three of them were the officer-bearers of the union. It was further found that a material piece of evidence clearly pointing to the contrary was wholly overlooked by the inquiry officer. It extracted the relevant portion of the evidence of witness Balchand and pointed out in no uncertain terms that if the inquiry officer had taken not of the relevant piece of evidence and had applied its mind to it and dealt with it in the report, it would have been difficult to hold the charge proved. The non-application of mind of the inquiry officer was pointed out by referring to that part of the final order which manifestly overlooked the material piece of evidence which would go to the root of the matter. The Industrial Court observed that the inquiry officer quietly skipped over very material portion of the evidence of Balchand which went a long way to falsify the charges relating to the incidents which preceded the actual assault on Verma. The Industrial Court then pointed out that report (Ex. D-18) purporting to have been made by victim Verma to the factory Manager on the day following the date of the occurrence when properly scanned appears to be a highly suspicious evidence because :"it is not dated and does not bear the endorsement of the office rot whom it was presented".is permissible because the revisional jurisdiction enables the authority to point something which is no evidence legally speaking or in the eye of law. It was pointed out that Verma did not identify the report. The Industrial Court concluded that the possibility of this report being introduced at a later stage to strengthen the case against the five appellant cannot be ruled out. After referring to other infirmities in the approach of the Labour Court, the Industrial Court concluded that the entire approach of the Manager in arriving at the finding of misconduct in his inquiry "appear to be biased and unfair", and "the conclusion are neither fair nor reasonable and any order of dismissal based thereon cannot be sustained". Can it ever be said that in reaching this conclusion, the Industrial Court exceeded its revisional jurisdiction ? The whole approach of the Labour Court dealing with the report of the enquiry as also the inquiry itself clearly disclosed material irregularity and thereby the Labour Court failed to exercise jurisdiction vested in it namely, to examine the propriety of the order which it failed to do. The Industrial Court, in our opinion, was perfectly justified in interfering with the order of the Labour Court. Even then the approach of the Industrial Court, being conscious of the seer constraints on its jurisdiction was of dignified restraint and just. It merely set aside the award of the Labour Court and did not proceed to reappraise evidence but remitted the case to the Labour Court for a fresh decision. It was thus an eminently just order.18. Is it such an order which the High Court could have interfered with in exercise of its extraordinary jurisdiction ? The High Court observed that the Labour Court can only interfere with the decision of the inquiry officer, if the findings arrived at by him were perverse. The High Court completely missed the ambit of jurisdiction of the Labour Court in that it had the jurisdiction to decide the legality and propriety of the order. Impropriety as converse of propriety cannot be equated with perversity as understood by the High Court. The High Court further observed that if "the finding of the misconduct is a plausible conclusion following from the evidence adduced at the enquiry, the labour tribunal have no jurisdiction to sit in judgment over the decision of the employer, as an appellate body". This betrays compete lack of understanding of the jurisdiction of the Labour Court in respect of the an order made under the standing order as set out in Schedule II Item 1 to the Act which enables the Labour Court to examine the legality and propriety of the order. The High Court therefore, wholly misread the relevant provision and interfered with the decision of the Industrial Court which was pre-eminently just and within the four corners of its jurisdiction. What left us guessing was that according to the High Court the Industrial Court had narrow jurisdiction while dealing with the order of the Labour Court, yet the High Court in exercise of its extraordinary jurisdiction interfered with decision of the Industrial Tribunal. Times without number, it has been pointed out that Article 226 is a device to secure and advance justice and not otherwise. (Sadhu Ram v. Delhi Transport Corporation ((1983) 4 SCC 156   : 1983 SCC (L&C) 507)).19. Ordinarily, the court exercising extraordinary jurisdiction is lathe to interfere with an order remanding the matter to the authority directed to investigate facts. The Industrial Court had made an order of remand. The High Court was not justified in interfering with the same. By this uncalled for interference, it has merely prolonged the agony of the unemployment workmen and permitted the jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 to be exploited by those who can well afford to wait to the determinate of those who can ill afford to wait by dragging the latter from court to court for adjudication of peripheral issues avoiding decision on issues more vital to them. (D. P. Maheshwari v. Delhi Administration ((1983) 4 SCC 293   : 1983 SCC (L&S) 527).)