BHUDIYALUR CO -OP AGRICULTURAL SERVICE LIMITED Vs. SETHURAMAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision is directed against the judgment of the Appellate Authority under the Payment of Wages Act (learned District Judge, Coimbatore) rendered in C. M. A. No. 125 of 1982.

(2.) THE brief facts leading to the filing of this writ petition are: The respondent herein is the laboratory chemist under the petitioner. On 26 October 1977 there was a shortage of Endosulfan due to outflow of the material. After enquiry the petitioner herein suggested the value of the shortage of Endosulfan to be recovered from the contractor Maruthan and from the respondent herein. Accordingly a sum of Rs. 2,904. 40 was deducted from the salary of the respondent. Thereupon, the respondent took up the matter before the Deputy Commissioner of Labour and the Deputy Commissioner of Labour held that the recovery was in order. On appeal before the appellate authority (District Judge, Coimbatore), the appellate authority came to the conclusion that in exhibit R3 the secretary of the petitioner himself admitted that one of the labourers working under the contractor Maruthan would have wilfully done the mischief of removing the valve from the storage tank and caused wastage of Endosulfan. In view of this specific admission, the appellate authority allowed the appeal preferred by the respondent herein. Aggrieved against the said order, the society has come up before this Court by way of this petition.

(3.) THE learned counsel for the petitioner would urge that when the respondent was solely in-charge of the laboratory, and if due to his negligence the loss has been sustained by the society, certainly the recovery is valid in law. In support of this he relied upon Kedarnath v. State and State of Uttar Pradesh v. Baburam In meeting the above submission Sri. N. G. R. Prasad, learned counsel for the respondent, submits that there is no specific finding whatsoever in this case to connect the respondent with the outflow of the material and according to exhibit R3 somebody, during the short absence of the respondent from the laboratory, had done the mischief. Therefore, to say collectively that all those who had something to do with the laboratory at the relevant time are liable cannot be the law and the two decisions relied on by the learned counsel for petitioner have no application to the facts of this case. His further argument is that this is not a case in which Section 7 (2) (c) of the Payment of Wages Act would come into play. Therefore, the order of the appellate authority is unassailable.