TATA TEA LIMITED Vs. GENERAL SECRETARY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner is the management in ID No. 113/1999 before the Industrial Tribunal, Idukki. The issue referred for adjudication was:

(2.) Smt. Mary was dismissed from service on allegations of misconduct, after conducting a domestic enquiry. The allegation in the charge sheet was that she had used filthy language against the Management Assistant, Field Assistant, Field Officer and the Company Supervisor, obstructed the officers of the management when they were doing fencing in the company's area, damaged the fixed fencing stone posts / barbed wire and threatened them with knife and stones on 11/07/1998 at about 5 p.m. In the domestic enquiry, the said workman was found guilty. Since the dismissal was after a domestic enquiry, the Tribunal considered the question of validity of the enquiry as a preliminary point and found that the enquiry was conducted properly in compliance with the principles of natural justice. Thereafter, the Tribunal considered the evidence in the enquiry and found that the findings of the enquiry officer is correct and sustainable. Thereafter, the Tribunal entered a finding that it has come out in evidence that along with the workman, her husband and son had obstructed the fencing of the boundary and there is only little connection with respect to the misconduct proved against the workman and her employment under the management. On that reasoning, the Tribunal came to the conclusion that the punishment of dismissal awarded to the workman is too harsh and directed the management to treat the workman as retrenched with effect from the date of the award and pay her backwages till the date of the award with retrenchment compensation and gratuity. The petitioner management is challenging the award to the extent it set aside the punishment imposed by the management.

(3.) The contention of the petitioner is that once the Tribunal finds that the finding of the enquiry officer was correct and sustainable, that automatically means that the finding on the misconduct is accepted by the Tribunal. After accepting that the workman was guilty of the misconduct alleged against her, according to counsel for the petitioner, the Tribunal could not have again reappreciated the evidence to come to a different conclusion that the misconduct had little connection with the employment of the workman under the management. He would submit that if the misconduct did not have any connection with the employment under the management, then it would not be a misconduct at all. Since the Tribunal had earlier found that the misconduct has been proved, such further finding would be totally perverse and on that finding, the Tribunal could not have altered the punishment imposed by the management on the workman.