KAVITHA MOVIE HOUSE Vs. P M MARY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE legal battle in this writ petition is between two unequals, the management of the Kavitha Movie House (the petitioner) on the one hand, and a sweeper (woman) employee (the first respondent) on the other; and they have remained locked up in dispute for wellnigh nine years by now. Accepting the finding in Ext. P7 domestic enquiry report, the petitioner passed Ext. P10 order dismissing the first respondent from service. On appeal by the first respondent under Section 18 (2) of the Kerala Shops and Commercial Establishments Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act), the second respondent, the Commissioner for Workmen's Compensation, Ernakulam, (the Appellate Authority) in and by Ext. P15 order held that the misconduct alleged against the first respondent was not proved either in a proper domestic enquiry or before him, and in the result, ordered the petitioner to pay the respondent a sum of Rs. 2,916 as backwages, and a sum of Rs. 324 as compensation in lieu of reinstatement; no reinstatement, however, was ordered. It is for qushing Ext. P15 that this writ petition has been filed.

(2.) SRI S. A. Nagendran, the counsel for the petitioner, argued that the second respondent has acted either without jurisdiction, or in excess of the jurisdiction vested in him, by interfering with Ext. P10 order of dismissal based on the finding in Ext. P7 enquiry report, which according to him, could have been found to be one supported by evidence, and could not have been characterised as perverse on a review by the Appellate Authority of the evidence adduced at the domestic enquiry.

(3.) SRI Stanley Fernandez, the counsel for the first respondent, however, took the stand that his client really is the aggrieved party inasmuch as the Appellate Authority, after having rightly come to the conclusion that the misconduct alleged was not proved in a proper domestic enquiry has, instead of ordering, as a natural corollary, the reinstatement of the first respondent into service, ordered only the payment of a paltry sum of Rs. 324 by way of compensation in lieu of reinstatement.