HAJARNAVIS J. - (1.) This is an appeal against the judgment delivered by Kania J. dismissing the appeal filed by the appellant against the judgment and decree of Shri V. D. Tulzapurkar Principal Judge, Bombay City Civil Court (as he then was) decreeing the respondent's plaintiff's suit.
(2.) It is not necessary for the purposes of this appeal to enumerate all the facts in details as the question canvassed at the trial and in appeal before the learned Single Judge and before us was within a narrow compass. In 1956, the respondent was working as a Subhedar in the Railway Protection Force in Bombay under the control of the Security Officer {Urban Branch) Western Railway, Bombay, owned by the Union of India. He was charge-sheeted and a departmental enquiry was held after a preliminary enquiry. It appears that during the departmental enquiry, some witnesses were examined whose statements were recorded during the preliminary enquiry and the copies of those statements were not furnished to the plaintiff before the witnesses were examined in the departmental enquiry. The procedure followed daring the departmental enquiry was that the witnesses were examined in-chief and their previous statements were read over to the witnesses who admitted them to be true and they were then tendered and it is thereafter that the plaintiff cross-examined the witnesses. The respondent did not raise any objection against the procedure followed at the preliminary (sic. departmental (?) Ed.) enquiry, nor did he ask for time. He cross-examined the witnesses even with reference to these statements tendered by the witnesses. The services of the plaintiff were ultimately terminated as he was found guilty of misconduct of which he was charged. His appeal against that order was also dismissed. This order of dismissal and the appellate order were challenged by the plaintiff by a suit filed in the City Civil Court. It is not necessary to refer to all the grounds on which the plaintiff challenged the order of dismissal because as stated earlier the plaintiff confined his case only to the ground of non-supply of the previously recorded statements. This suit was resisted by the appellant. It may be mentioned that at the hearing of the suit, the parties agreed not to lead any evidence on the question of validity of the removal order and in that behalf relied only on the documents of which an agreed compilation was prepared and filed. The plaintiff examined himself but his evidence was to the effect that he was not employed after the termination of his services anywhere else except foe a short period of 2 to 3 years. In his evidence, he does not, at all, state that any prejudice was caused to him because of the non-supply of the previously recorded statements. The learned trial Judge, after taking all these facts into consideration, held that the respondent was entitled to be furnished with true copies of the statements of witnesses recorded in the course of the preliminary enquiry. He held that the statements were made available to the respondent as and when the witnesses were examined, but that did not amount to giving the respondent sufficient opportunity as contemplated under Rule 13 (c) of the Railway Protection Force Discipline and Appeal Rules, 1955 and under Article 311 (2) of the Constitution of India. He held that the enquiry was in violation of the principles of natural justice. He held that the respondent should be deemed to be in service and was entitled to all the benefits permissible under the Rules. He, therefore, decreed the plaintiff's suit.
(3.) An appeal filed by the appellant wa3 also dismissed by the learned Single Judge who observed : "Now, in the present case, as pointed out by the trial Court, all that was done was that the previous statements made by the witnesses at the preliminary investigation were merely read out to these witnesses and tendered in Court. After this the respondent was immediately called upon to cross-examine these witnesses. There was no time given to the respondent to digest the facts contained in those previous statements, even assuming that the reading of each of those statements might have been followed by him properly, which is also very doubtful. As observed by the learned Principal Judge, merely tendering of the previous statements of the witnesses at the end of their examination-in-chief may not result in the respondent having knowledge of the contents thereof. If the real object of making the contents of these previous statements known to the employee was to enable the employee to cross-examine those witnesses properly then the object cannot be said to have been achieved by merely tendering such previous statements at the end of the examination-in.chief and calling upon the employee to cross-examine the witnesses immediately thereafter. Unless the employee was given in advance either copies of those previous statements or at least inspection of those statements, it cannot be said that he was given adequate opportunity to prepare himself for cross-examining these witnesses." He, therefore, affirmed the finding recorded by the trial Judge and dismissed the appeal. It is against these judgments that the present appeal has been filed.;