SASTA SAHITYA MANDAL Vs. DEEPAK SEHGAL AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS writ petition has been preferred by the petitioner with respect to the order dated 5th September, 2003 of the Appellate Authority under the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972, allowing the appeal of the respondent No. 1 and directing the Controlling Authority under the said Act to determine the gratuity due from the petitioner to the respondent No. 1. Pursuant to the said order, the Controlling Authority under the Gratuity Act determined a sum of Rs. 70,080/ - as payable by the petitioner to the respondent No. 1 towards gratuity and directed the petitioner to pay the said amount with interest at 10% per annum from the date when the gratuity became payable and till the date of payment. The said order has also been impugned by the petitioner in this petition. Though this Court vide order dated 19th April, 2004, while issuing notice of the petition stayed the operation of the orders impugned in the writ petition but it appears that the petitioner was made to deposit a bankers cheque for a sum of Rs. 88,894/ - with the authorities under the Gratuity Act in compliance of the orders impugned in this petition. This Court vide order dated 6th May, 2004 directed that the bankers cheque be not encashed.

(2.) THE petitioner is a Society publishing Gandhian and allied literature. The petitioner Society was established under the directions of Mahatma Gandhi, Sh. Jamnalal Bajaj & Sh. G.D. Birla for the development of Hindi literature and to make it available to the public at the cheapest possible prices. The respondent No. 1 was employed as an Assistant Accountant with the petitioner. It is the case of the petitioner that the respondent No. 1 mis -conducted and indulged in misappropriation and embezzlement of funds of the petitioner. Dr. L.M. Singhvi, the then President of the petitioner appointed an Enquiry Committee comprising inter alia of Sardar Joginder Singh, IPS to examine and probe into the alleged misappropriation of funds by the respondent No. 1. An FIR was also registered against the respondent No. 1. It is the case of the petitioner that the respondent No. 1, to avoid enquiry and criminal proceedings chose to resign from the services of the petitioner vide his letter dated 19th June, 2001.

(3.) THE Controlling Authority under the Gratuity Act vide its order dated 3rd February, 2003 held that the reference aforesaid meant that the respondent No. 1 had not accepted his resignation voluntarily and has rather challenged the same demanding reinstatement in service and thus the respondent No. 1 had not till then become entitled to claim gratuity. The claim of the respondent No. 1 was thus dismissed as pre -mature.