M K SURENDRABABU Vs. INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These writ petitions are filed by the workman and management respectively, involved in I.D. No. 57 of 2003 on the files of the Industrial Tribunal, Palakkad. Both of them are challenging the award passed by the Tribunal in that I.D., to the extent it is against them. The issue referred for adjudication was:

(2.) The contention of the management is mainly regarding the question as to whether the workman is a workman as defined under the Industrial Disputes Act. Admittedly, at the time of dismissal from service, the workman was working as a Mead Clerk/Accountant and he was debarred from holding the post of manager as a punishment for misconduct for the same misconduct in the earlier disciplinary proceedings. That being so, it was for the management to prove that the duties and functions of Head Clerk/Accountant involve supervisory functions. The bank is a Co-operative Bank. They must certainly have orders/circulars specifying the duties and functions of a Head Clerk/Accountant. No documents have been produced by the management either before the Tribunal or before this Court. The learned counsel for the management would submit that documents already on record before the Industrial Tribunal themselves are sufficient to prove their contention. They would rely on Ext. M4. It is a resolution of the board meeting dated 5.12.1977, which requires Head Clerk/Accountant to attend to duties of branch manager whenever required. But, after having debarred the petitioner from holding the post of manager for two years, I do not think that Ext. M4 can be relied upon to show either that the workman was working as manager or that the post of Head Clerk/Accountant involved supervisory duties and functions in the year 2000 when the workman was admittedly working only as a Head Clerk/Accountant and not as a Branch Manager.

(3.) Ext. M7 staff pattern would show that in the hierarchy, Head Clerk/Accountant is the 4th from the top. Even that will not prove anything, unless documents are produced to prove that the duties and functions of Head Clerk/Accountant involve supervisory duties.