- (1.) THIS is a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution which has been directed by Mr. Justice mehrotra to be laid before a Bench.
(2.) ON 26 May 1952, Sri Ram Krishnan, the second respondent (herein referred to as the employee), entered into the service of F and C. Osier (India) Ltd. the petitioner (herein referred to as the company), as an accounts clerk upon terms and subject to the conditions of an agreement executed by both parties on that date. Under the terms of this agreement the employee's services could be terminated at any time on one month's notice and were also terminable forthwith if. in the opinion of the company, he was incompetent or negligent in the performance of his duties. On 2 December 1952, the company purporting to act under the agreement terminated the employee's services forthwith but paid him salary up to the end of that month. The employee's case was taken up by the Manpur Mechanical and Technical Workers Union who (?) moved the conciliation officer to constitute a board to settle the dispute which the union contended had arisen with regard to the contemplated non-employment of the employee. A conciliation board was in due course constituted, but as neither of the parties nominated a member, the board in fact consisted of the conciliation officer sitting alone. What exactly happened when the dispute came before the conciliation board is a matter of dispute. The company's case is that as it had not served achargesheet upon the employee prior to the date upon which it company had, by the agreement dated 24 January 1953, condoned his past faults. This was denied by the company, and the interpretation of the agreement was therefore an issue before the Tribunal. That issue certainly involved a question of law of sub-stance, and this Court has held that if the Tribunal had jurisdiction to hear the appeal it had also the jurisdiction to decide any question raised in the appeal: Upper Ganges Electric Employees' Union v. Upper Ganges Valley Electric Supply company, Ltd. [writ petition No. 55 of 1955, decided on 8 December 1955]. The second submission is a twofold one, namely, that the decision of the Tribunal was invalid because (a)the Tribunal had misconstrued the agreement and (b) that it had misdirected itself in holding that there was no evidence upon which it could be held that the employee was responsible for the mistakes referred to in the so-called charge-sheet.
(3.) IT is, we think, apparent from the decision of the Labour Appellate Tribunal that it did not have before it a correct copy of the agreement recorded by the conciliation officer, for it has placed considerable reliance upon the sentence, "this finally resolves the dispute," which it has treated as part of the agreement whereas a reference to the original documents shows that this sentence did not form part of "the agreement but was an addition made after the parties had signed the agreement by the conciliation officer himself.;