Rajasthan High Court - Jaipur
Bhanwar Lal Daroga vs Judge Labour Court And Ors on 15 January, 2019
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE FOR RAJASTHAN
BENCH AT JAIPUR
S.B. Civil Writs No. 189/2000
Bhanwar Lal Daroga son of Shri Poosaram, resident of village and
post Gudhasalt District Nabaur -Petitioner
Versus
1. The Judge Labour Court No.1, Jaipur
2. The Managing Director, Rajasthan State Road, Transport
Corporation Parivan Marg, Jaipur. ----Respondents
For Petitioner(s) : Mr. V.L. Mathur For Respondent(s) : Mr. Vinayak Joshi
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SANJEEV PRAKASH SHARMA Order 15/01/2019 Petitioner, by way of this writ petition is assailing the award passed by the labour Court whereby the reference has been answered against him vide order dated 29.11.99.
Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the Judge Labour Court has committed error in allowing the inquiry to be conducted before the Court itself without declaring the inquiry held by the respondents as defective. Second submission raised by the counsel for the petitioner is that the Judge Labour Court has erred in not considering the facts that the petitioner was already served with the penalty in terms of the circular issued by the RSRTC dated 24.7.82 and, therefore another penalty of removal of service could not have been passed. The third submission of learned counsel for the petitioner is that the Labour court has failed to appreciate the provisions under Section 11A of the Act of 1947.
Learned counsel for the petitioner has placed reliance on the judgment in the case of Rajasthan State Road (Downloaded on 05/06/2021 at 09:01:46 PM) (2 of 4) [CW-189/2000] Transport Corporation Vs. Gopal Singh & Ors. reported in 1997(2)WLN 658, Shankar Chakravarti Vs. Britannia Biscuit Co. Ltd. and another reported in AIR 1979 SC 1652 and Cooper Engineering Ltd. Vs. Shri P.P. Mundhe reported in AIR 1975 SC 1900 to support his submission.
Per contra, learned counsel for the respondents submits that having itself satisfied that the inquiry was not conducted by them the respondents thus produced evidence before the labour Court and in the said circumstances no specific order of declaring the inquiry as defective was required to be passed. Learned counsel also placed reliance on a judgment passed in D.B. Special Appeal Writ No.376/2017 (Devdutt Gautam Vs. RSRTC) decided on 27.11.2017 wherein imposing a penalty was not considered as a double jeopardy for punishment of removal.
Having heard learned counsel at length, this Court finds that vide award dated 29.11.99 the Judge, Labour Court examined the witnesses produced before it by the respondents in support of the order of removal passed against the petitioner. The petitioner was appointed on 17.9.82 as a conductor and he was discharged from service on 22.2.83. Thus, he had worked for only five months and in five months the charge of allowing three passenger to travel without ticket was found to have been proved by the Judge Labour Court and preliminary inquiry was conducted before it. The contention of learned counsel for the petitioner that the inquiry could not have been conducted before declaring his domestic inquiry as defective, is on the basis of judgment passed by the Supreme Court in Cooper Engineering Ltd. Vs. Shri P.P. Mundhe (Supra). However, this Court finds that in the said case Supreme Court held as under:-
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(3 of 4) [CW-189/2000] "We are, therefore, clearly of opinion that when a case of dismissal or discharge of an employee is referred for industrial adjudication the labour court should first decide as a preliminary issue whether the domestic enquiry has violated the principles of natural justice. When there is no domestic enquiry or defective enquiry is admitted by the employer, there will be no difficulty. But when the matter is in controversy between the parties that question must be decided as a preliminary issue. On that decision being pronounced it will be for the management to decide whether it will adduce any evidence before the labour court."
(underlined by this Court) In the case of Shankar Chakravarti Vs. Britannia Biscuit Co. Ltd. and another (Supra) the Supreme Court was examining the legality of an order passed by the High Court wherein it directed the Tribunal to conduct inquiry although no such request was made by the concerned management. The facts of the said case, thus, are different from the present case where the respondents themselves accepting that their inquiry was not legal, had produced their witnesses before the labour Court and the labour Court after dealing with the charge as well as the statements reached to finding against the petitioner.
Thus, the contention of learned counsel for the petitioner that in all cases finding regarding defective inquiry must be necessarily given by the Labour Court is misconceived. Where the management itself agrees that the earlier inquiry was defective, no such verdict is required and if the employer itself adduces the evidence before the Labour Court it shall not be precluded from examining the witnesses and reaching to the conclusion whether the concerned employee/claimant is guilty of the charges or not.
The next question raised by learned counsel for the petitioner with regard to the double jeopardy, if examined, shows that the circular only talks about the financial penalty to be (Downloaded on 05/06/2021 at 09:01:46 PM) (4 of 4) [CW-189/2000] imposed in relation to the tickets, the same does not amount to punishment under a departmental action. Thus, action taken for collecting revenue is independent of the action to be taken under the departmental proceedings. The Division Bench of this Court in Devdutt Gautam Vs. Chief Manager, Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation & Anr. (Supra) has already held such not to be case of double jeopardy.
Therefore, the point raised by the learned counsel for the petitioner with regard to Section 11A of the Act of 1947 and to submit that the misconduct cannot be said to be of such a nature for which punishment of removal was not called for is wholly misconceived and, I am unable to accept his submission. In Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation Vs. Gopal Singh & Anr. (Supra) the Court has held that cases where there is a charge against conductor of allowing passenger without tickets, the provisions under Section 11 A are to be exercised by the labour Court. The law has laid down in Ghanshyam Sharma Vs. Regional Manager Raj. State Road Transport Corporation, Kota reported in 2000(3)WLC(Raj.) 236 the Full Division Bench of this Court has held so. Thus, that to be otiose and in view of the judgment passed by the Supreme Court would not apply over ruled in view of the judgment.
Thus, the writ petition fails and is accordingly dismissed.
(SANJEEV PRAKASH SHARMA),J Anand 15 (Downloaded on 05/06/2021 at 09:01:46 PM) Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)