UNION OF INDIA Vs. REGISTER C AT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners are aggrieved by the order of the Tribunal, which has held that there was no evidence at all on which to impose the penalty that has been imposed on the second respondent-workman who was charged with having organised an agitation on March 27, 1993 in front of Railway engine attached to the train and prevented its movement when it was at the Thanjavur station, the workman being an employee of the Railways whose place of work was at Kumbakonam.

(2.) In the reply to the show-cause notice that the workman gave before the commencement of the enquiry, he did not assert that he had not gone to Thanjavur, that he was not present there at that time or that and on account of the agitation, its movement was not delayed. All that he did do in his reply was to pick holes in the depositions that had earlier been given in a preliminary enquiry, and he rested his case only on the alleged failure on the part of some of the witnesses to identify him, and claimed that the evidence given by the driver should not be believed.

(3.) The driver of the train was examined as a witness at the enquiry, in which, the workman participated fully. The driver in his deposition stated that the respondent-workman had obstructed the movement of the engine by agitating in front of it. He had also mentioned the names of three other workmen who were in front of the engine. He also stated that he had given a statement earlier, wherein, he had mentioned the names of the respondent-workman and others who had obstructed the Train No. 664 passenger. In the cross-examination of the driver by the workman, the driver stated that he was working in the Railways for the past 30 years, that there were rival unions and clashes between the two unions, and that he himself was not a witness in any of the cases concerning those unions. When the suggestion was made to him that it was not possible for the two other persons he had named to have been present in front of the engine, he stated those workmen had indeed arrived at the Thanjavur station by Train No. 6153 Express, and that he had actually seen them at the Thanjavur station. Significantly there was not even a suggestion made to the driver who had identified the workmen, and who was in the best position to so identify, as agitators who were in front of the Engine of which he was the driver, that the workman was not present in Thanjavur Railway Station at that time, or that he had not obstructed the movement of the engine. There was also no suggestion that the evidence that was given by the driver was false evidence given on account of union rivalry.