CALTEX (INDIA) LTD Vs. PRESIDING OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application for a writ of certiorari or other appropriate writ quashing the award passed by the Labour Court, Quilon, in Industrial Dispute No. 48 of 1963. The dispute referred to the Court was: ''Is the dismissal of the worker M. C. Antony legal and proper: If so and if not to what relief he is entitled?

(2.) THE dispute was between the management of Caltex (India) Ltd., Ernakulam and their workmen represented by the Petroleum Worker's Union, Ernakulam. Under the Standing Orders of the company, theft, fraud or dishonesty in connection with the employer's property is a ground for taking disciplinary action against a worker. (See 29 (e) of the Standig Orders). At the domestic enquiry, the Enquiry Officer came to the conclusion that it is proved beyond doubt that M. C. Antony has stolen a 9 litre tin from the company's empty tin godown on October 15, 1962, and painted it himself unauthorisedly with the company's paint during lunch time on that day. He was therefore found guilty of S. O. No. 29 (e) and was dismissed from service with effect from 15th December, 1962. The case of the Union was that what was alleged to have been stolen from the company's empty tin godown really belonged to M. C. Antony who had purchased the tin for Rs. 1.50 from a temporary worker of the Burmah -Shell Company about seven months back, that he had been taking the tin to the company for receiving his quota of kerosene oil twice a week, that he had painted the tin in his house on 14 -10 -1962, that the tin was handed over to him by his father for the purpose of receiving kerosene oil when he had gone out of the company's premises for lunch, that he had taken the tin inside the company's premises at 12.20 P.M. on 15 -10 -1962 after lunch and that he told the foreman Sri. P. K. G. Menon at 1.30 P.M. the same day about the possession of the tin with him. The Union contended before the Labour Court that the domestic enquiry was not made in conformity with the principles of natural justice, that the alleged stock verification of tins in the store conducted by the foreman on 15 -10 -1962 was not correct, that the confession alleged to have been made by the accused worker to the effect that he had painted the tin with the company's paint and brush within the company's premises soon after he had got the tin was not a voluntary confession and that the conclusion arrived at by the Enquiry Officer that tin produced by Antony belonged to the company and that it was stolen by Antony from the empty tin godown on 15 -10 -1962 is an unreasonable and perverse one and therefore the Labour Court had jurisdiction to entertain the dispute and give appropriate relief to the dismissed workman.

(3.) TWO points were argued by learned counsel for the petitioner: