MAHENDRA SINGH DHANTWAL Vs. HINDUSTAN MOTORS LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Civil Appeal No. 2574/1972 preferred by the appellant Mahendra Singh Dhantwal was disposed of by this Court on May 7, 1976. The decision of this Court is reported in Mahendra Singh Dhantwal v. Hindustan Motors Ltd., (1976) Supp SCR 635 : (AIR 1976 SC 2062).

(2.) The operative portion of the judgment reads as under :

(3.) The respondent was accordingly required to pay Rs. 20,000/- only in lieu of his reinstatement. In order to fully grasp the meaning of the operative portion of the judgment, it may be recalled that in an earlier round of litigation between the parties, the Industrial Tribunal made an award directing 'reinstatement of the workman (present appellant) with 50% of his backwages for the period of his forced, unemployment as compensation.' After this award the respondent-company paid, lip sympathy by reinstating the appellant but again terminated his service, by paying three months salary in lieu of notice oil the assumption that it was open to the respondent to terminate the appellant's service with three months notice. This assumption was founded on the alleged contract of service between the parties that the appellant was employed for a period of eight years. If the law is, as it stands now on this point, as declared in Santosh Gupta v. State Bank of Patiala, (1980) 3 SCR 884 : (AIR 1980 SC 1219) this would have again been impermissible retrenchment but that aspect is no more open to us. In the second round of litigation, the Tribunal held that the respondent-company under the guise of invoking a contractual term had in fact dismissed the appellant on the ground of misconduct as alleged by the respondent. The Tribunal directed again 'reinstatement with full backwages for the period of his forced unemployment as compensation.' The respondent challenged the correctness of this award by a writ petition in the Calcutta High Court. The learned single Judge before whom the writ petition came up for hearing rejected the same observing that the view taken by the Tribunal cannot be characterised as unreasonable. Undaunted by these repeated rebuffs, the respondent carried the matter, in appeal before the Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court. The Division Bench reached an unsustainable conclusion that unless the workman is discharged for misconduct, an application under Section 33-A is not required to be made and the Tribunal bad no jurisdiction to set aside the order of termination in an application under Section 33-A. By a certificate granted by the High Court under Article 133 (1) (c) of the Constitution, the appellant preferred the aforementioned appeal to this Court.