BINNY LIMITED Vs. C.C. THOMAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE defendant in O.S. No. 5625 of 1967 on the file of the City Civil Court, Madras, is the appellant herein. The respondent herein at the relevant time was working as Assistant Engineer in the Shipping Section, (Madras Harbour) of the appellant herein. Certain charges were framed against the respondent by the appellant and those charges have been set out in the following terms in paragraph 20 of the judgment, which alone was brought to my notice during the hearing of this appeal, as follows:

(2.) THE learned VII Assistant Judge, City Civil Court, Madras, by judgment and decree dated 4th August, 1970 found the material issues in favour of the respondent and decreed the suit as prayed for. It is against this judgment and decree that the present appeal has been filed by the defendant.

(3.) MR . S. Ramasubramanian appearing for the appellant very elaborately argued this appeal before me. The learned Counsel contended that the finding of the learned trial Judge that the charges Were not proved against the respondent herein was beyond the jurisdiction of the civil Court, since the civil Court had no jurisdiction to go into the correctness or otherwise of a finding, arrived at a domestic enquiry. In order to sustain this contention, the learned Counsel took me through the relevant paragraphs of the judgment. Since I uphold the judgment and decree of the trial Court on another point with reference to which the appellant has practically no answer, I do not propose to consider the validity or otherwise of this submission. In paragraph 26 of the judgment which in effect deals with issue No. 4, the learned trial Judge has come to the conclusion that the domestic enquiry conducted by the appellant was in illegal violation of the principles of natural justice and was illegal and irregular and that therefore the respondent was entitled to the declaration that the order of dismissal passed against him was ineffective and inoperative. The facts which will sustain this conclusion of the learned trial Judge are as follows: