GENERAL MANAGER, CENTRAL RAILWAY, BOMBAY Vs. SHAKUNTALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard learned counsel for the parties.

(2.) The short question that arises for my consideration in the instant revision is, whether petitioner-employer was justified in deducting an amount from consolidated account of gratuity, leave salary and group insurance, for the loss suffered by them and which could be directly attributable to the respondent-employee under Section 7(2)(c) of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 (for short "the Act"), without issuing show cause notice as required under Section 10(1-A) of the Act.

(3.) The respondent was working with the petitioner-employer and retired as Senior Catering Inspector on 30-6-1986. According to the petitioner, the respondent-employee had not submitted the empty thali account before his retirement though he was repeatedly asked to finalise the said account. Respondent-employee did not pay any heed to the letters written to him till his retirement asking him to finalise the empty thali account. There is no dispute that the respondent employee was in charge of the dead stock of empty thalis and it was his responsibility to maintain the stock and submit account of empty thalis every month to the authorities concerned. According to the petitioner despite several opportunities offered to him to submit empty thali account, the respondent-employee neglected to submit the account. This made the petitioner-employer to take decision to recover the loss under Section 10 of the Act. The loss attributed to the respondent-employee, according to the petitioner, was Rs.36,891/-. The decision of the aforesaid deduction was communicated to the respondent by letter dated 13-10-1986.