GENERAL MANAGER, PARRYS CONFECTIONERY LTD , NELLIKUPPEM Vs. INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNAL, MADRAS AND ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is ai petition to quash an order of the Industrial Tribunal, Madras dated 10th February, 1971 made in petition No. 6 of 1970 in I. D. No. 56 of 1969 dismissing the petition filed by the petitioner herein under Section 33 (2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 seeking the approval of the Tribunal for dismissal of the second respondent herein from service. Most of the facts are not in controversy. On 22-11-1968 at about 11.15 P. M., in the godown near the confectionery in E. I. D. Parry and Company Limited, Nellikuppam; a theft of copper vessels and gun metal articles was committed and six persons were prosecuted in respect thereof. Out of the six accused, accused 1 to 3, namely Vaithilingam, Ramalingam and Elamuthu, were alleged to have abetted the offence while accused 4 to 6, namly Durai alias Ramalingam, Dureikannu (the second respondent) and Selvaraju were alleged to have committed the theft. This prosecution ended in an acquittal in Calendar Case No. 758 of 1969 on the file of the Court of the Sub Magistrate of Panruti on 25th August 1969. The Magistrate held:

(2.) It must be mentioned at this juncture that the Tribunal rejected the case of the petitioner on several grounds. The first ground was that the action taken by the petitioner against the second respondent was not bona fide. For the purpose of coming to this conclusion, the Tribunal relied on three matters. One was, the Criminal Court having acquitted the second respondent the petitioner ought not to have taken any action against him departmentally. The second was the petitioner waited for the conclusion of the proceedings before the Criminal Court before taking proceedings against the second respondent. Thirdly, Ramalingam who was one of the persons against whom enquiry was conducted had given a statement before the Enquiry Officer and that statement had been relied on arid acted upon by the Enquiry Officer and drat Ramalingam was not dismissed from service but was given a lesser punishment and that itself showed that the management had made up the affairs with Ramalingam and induced him to give evidence against the second respondent. Independent of the above circumstances, the second ground given by the Tribunal for not giving approval of the action taken by the petitioner was that the abovesaid Ramalingam being a co-accused along with the second respondent, both before the; Magistrate and before the Enquiry Officer, should not have been examined as a witness and therefore his evidence ought not to have been acted upon in finding the second respondent guilty. The third ground was that there was no evidence before the Enquiry Officer to find the second respondent guilty of the charge framed against him.

(3.) Mr. M. R. Narayanaswami, the learned counsel for the petitioner contends that none of the above! circumstances is tenable in law and as a matter of fact, the Tribunal exceeded its jurisdiction in going into the veracity of the evidence given before the Enquiry Officer and1 on that basis declining to grant the approval asked for. For the purpose of considering the validity of this argument, it is necessary to deal with the circumstances relied on by the Tribunal and which I have enumerated above.