BUCKINGHAM AND CARNATIC COMPANY LTD Vs. VENKATIAH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) VENKATIAH, respondent 1, was an employee of the Buckingham and Carnatic Company, Ltd. He was granted six days leave with effect from 10 January 1957. Allowing for the holidays that followed he should have joined duty on 19 January 1957. But he did not do so. Nor did he apply for extension of leave as required by the standing orders of the company. Standing Order 8 (ii) of the company provides that any employee who absents himself for eight consecutive working days without leave shall be deemed to have left the company's service without notice thereby terminating his contract of service. The standing order, however, provides that if the employee gives an explanation to the satisfaction of the management, his absence shall be converted into leave without pay or dearness allowance. If it is also proved to the satisfaction of the management that the absence was due to sickness, then the employee is entitled to have his absence converted into medical leave for such period as the employee is eligible. On 11 March 1957 Venkatiah wrote to the company that after reaching his village he was laid up with fever and dysentery and that he was under the treatment of the Civil Assistant Surgeon of the Government Hospital, Kanigiri. He also stated that after returning from his village he reported to the medical officer of the Employees' State Insurance, Perambur. who referred him to the medical officer of the company. He therefore prayed that he might be given leave in accordance with the medical certificate he enclosed. It is necessary here to mention that in the claim filed by the labour union before the labour court it was stated that Venkatiah "underwent treatment in the Government Hospital, Kanigiri," from 15 January to 7 March 1959. However, the medical certificate which Venkatiah produced does not say that he was in hospital. All that it says is that he was suffering from malaria and dysentery and that he was under the treatment of Dr. Narasimha Rao, Civil Assistant Surgeon, Kanigiri. On receipt of the application of Venkatiah the company directed him to appear before its senior medical officer. That officer reported on 22 March 1957 in these terms: I have examined this worker and am unable to confirm that he was ill for a period of nearly two months. In consequence the company declined to accept the explanation of Venkatiah and refused to condone his absence without leave. On 2 May 1957 Venkatiah wrote to the Eegional Director, Employees' State Insurance Corporation, Mylapore, asking him " help me and reinstate me into my service of Buckingham and Carnatic Mills. " This letter was forwarded to the company on 17 May 1957 with a request for comments. On 24 May 1957 the company wrote to the Regional Director in the course of which they said: He was examined by our senior medical officer on 22 March 1957 and the latter was unable to confirm that he was ill for a period of nearly two months as obviously a person who was continuously ill for two months suffering from malaria and dysentery would have shown some signs of the after-effects of this illness when he re ported at the mills. The explanation offered by Venkatiah was therefore not accepted and he was not reinstated in the company's service. The company further stated that the alternative evidence for sickness produced by Venkatiah had not upto then been accepted by the corporation and that "until the alternative evidence of sickness produced by this person is accepted by the Employees' State Insurance Corporation, we regret we cannot consider the question of reinstating Venkatiah. "

(2.) ON 5 June 1957, the Regional Director wrote to the company mentioning that the alternative evidence produced by Venkatiah had been accepted by the Corporation and asking the company to reconsider Venkatiah's case for reinstatement. The company sent a long reply on 12 June 1957, which ended as follows: Before we take a final decision in this matter we shall be grateful if you would let us know the extraordinary circumstances under which the alternative evidence of sickness produced by the above-mentioned insured person was accepted by you, despite the failure of the insured person to comply with your instructions regarding alternative evidence of sickness. In answer to this the Regional Director wrote on 22 September 1967 as follows: As regards the circumstances under which tie alternative evidence of sickness produced by the abovementioned insured person was accepted, I have to observe that it is at the discretion of the corporation either to accept or reject any alternative evidence of incapacity produced by an insured person and the Corporation cannot disclose the grounds on which it was accepted. On 5 September 1957 the company finally replied in these terms: According to the company's standing orders which lay down the conditions of service of all our employees, any employee who is deemed to have left the company's service due to absence for eight consecutive working days cannot be reinstated unless he gives an explanation to the satisfaction of the management. In this particular instance the employee has been deemed to have left the company's service due to absence for eight consecutive working days and as the management is not satisfied with the explanation given by the employee for his absence, we regret we cannot reinstate him. Meantime, that is to say, on 5 June 1957, Venkatiah was sanctioned payment of sickness benefit for the period covered by the certificate which he produced from Dr. Narasimha Rao, Civil Assistant Surgeon, Kanigiri,

(3.) AS the company refused to take back Venkatiah, an industrial dispute was raised and on 26 March 1958 the Government referred the following questions for adjudication to the labour court: 1. Whether the discharge of Venkatiah, C. M. Spinning No. 699, is justified and to what relief he is entitled. 2. Compensation of relief, if any awarded, in terms of money if it can be so computed. On 24 July 1958, the labour court passed an order directing the reinstatement of Venkatiah. The present petition has been filed for the issue of an appropriate writ to quash this order of the labour court. 3. It is not disputed that the leave of Venkatiah expired on 19 January 1967. He did not rejoin duty on that date. Nor did he apply for extension of leave. In fact till March 1957 the company heard nothing at all from him. This is therefore a case to which standing Order 8 (ii) of the company directly applied. That rule provides that if an employee is absent for eight consecutive working days without leave it shall be deemed that he left the company's service without motive thereby terminating his contract of service. If he was ill and proved that fact to the satisfaction of the management, he was entitled to have his absence converted into medical leave for such perid as he was eligible. The point to note here is that it is the management that has to be satisfied that Venkatiah was really ill-not the Employees' State Insurance Corporation or other outside authorities. The management was not bound to accept the medical certificate which Venkatiah produced. In the present case they sent Venkatiah to their chief medical officer who reported that he could not confirm that Venkatiah had been ill for two months. Obviously if he had been ill with malaria and dysentery from 15 January 1957 till 7 March 1957, his condition must have been obvious to the medical officer who examined him on 22 March 1957. The company was entitled to say that it did not believe the explanation of Venkatiah and was not prepared to act on the certificate he produced. It was argued that the evidence which Venkatiah produced was accepted by the Employees' State Insurance Corporation but, as I said before, the company was not bound to accept the views of the Corporation. I notice that the company asked for elucidation of the circumstances under which the alternative evidence of sickness produced by Venkatiah was accepted but the information was refused. The company was merely told that it was in the discretion of the Corporation either to accept or reject the alternative evidence produced. The company was also told in clear terms that the Corporation could not disclose the grounds on which the alternative evidence was accepted. In that position the company was entitled to prefer the opinion of its own medical officer.