- (1.) In a long line of decisions of this court the ambit of sec 33 industrial disputes Act, 1947, is now well-established. There is also no difference in principle of the law applicable to a case under sec. 10 industrial disputes Act and that under sec. 33. To put it clearly, it is this :
(2.) When an application under sec. 33 whether for approval or for permission is made to a tribunal it has initially a limited jurisdiction only to see whether a prima facie case is made out in respect of the misconduct charged. This is however, the position only when the domestic enquiry proceeding the order of dismissal is free from any defect, that is to say, free from the vice of violation of the principles of natural justice if on the other hand, there is violation of the principles of natural justice the tribunal will then give opportunity to the employer to produce evidence, if any, and also to the workman to rebut it if he so chooses. In the latter event the tribunal will be entitled to arrive at its own conclusion on merits on the evidence produced before it with regard to the proof of the misconduct charged, and the tribunal, then, will not be confined merely to consider whether a prima facie case is established against the employee. In other words, in such an event, the employers findings in the domestic enquiry will lapse and these will be substituted by the independent conclusions of the tribunal on merits.
(3.) There is a two-fold approach to the problem and if lost sight of , it may result in some confusion. Firstly, in a case where there is no defect in procedure in the course of a domestic enquiry into the charges for misconduct against an employee, the tribunal can interfere with an order of dismissal on one or other of the following conditions :- (1) If there is no legal evidence at all recorded in the domestic enquiry against the concerned employee with reference to the charge or if no reasonable person can arrive at a conclusion of guilt on the charge levelled against the employee on the evidence recorded against him in the domestic en quiry. This is what is known as a perverse finding. (2) Even if there is some legal evidence in the domestic enquiry but there is no prima facie case of guilt made out against the person charged for the of fence even on the basis that the evidence so recorded is reliable. Such a case May overlap to some extent with the second part of the condition no. 1 above. A prima facie case is not, as in a criminal case, a case proved to the hilt.;