MANAGEMENT OF CAMBODIA MILLS A UNIT OF NTC TN AND P LTD Vs. PRESIDING OFFICER SPECIAL INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD the learned counsel appearing for the petitioner.

(2.) THIS writ petition has been filed by the petitioner Mills praying that this Court may be pleased to call for the records of the first respondent in Approval Petition No.21 of 2003, in I.D.Nos.1 of 2002 and 3 of 2003, dated 17.9.2007 and quash the same and to pass such further orders as this Court may deem fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case.

(3.) THE learned counsel for the petitioner had submitted that the impugned order of the first respondent, dated 17.9.2007, dismissing the Approval Petition, filed by the petitioner, is erroneous and unsustainable. THE first respondent Tribunal had erred in dismissing the Approval Petition only for the reason that certain writ petitions were pending before this Court, under Section 33(2) (b) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. THE first respondent Tribunal had only to find out as to whether a prima facie case had been made out and whether an enquiry had been conducted, in accordance with the provisions of the Standing Orders and whether the second respondent had been victimized. When all the above ingredients were found to be in favour of the petitioner, the first respondent Tribunal ought to have granted the Approval. THE reasoning of the first respondent that the petitioner should await the final out come of the writ petitions in W.P.No.2353 of 2001 and W.P.No.14078 of 2002, before inflicting the punishment of dismissal against the second respondent, is arbitrary and erroneous. Since the second respondent was unauthorisedly absent, continuously, for a long period of time, the Approval Petition ought to have been ordered by the first respondent Tribunal. As the Tribunal had found the enquiry to be proper and valid, there is no reason for the first respondent Tribunal to dismiss the approval petition. THE learned counsel for the petitioner had also submitted that the first respondent Tribunal had erred in holding that the second respondent had been dismissed from service.