JAYASHREE ELECTRON PVT. LTD. Vs. PRASHANT RANU GAWARE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Rule. Rule is made returnable forthwith. With the consent of the learned counsel appearing for parties, the Petitions are taken up for final disposal.

(2.) The challenge in the present Petitions is to the Part-I Awards dtd. 15/7/2022 passed by the Labour Court No.3, Pune by which the enquiry conducted against Respondents is found to be fair, proper and not in violation of principles of natural justice. The Labour Court has however held that the findings of the enquiry officer are perverse. The employer has filed these Petitions to the limited extent of the findings of the Labour Court about perversity in the findings of the enquiry officer.

(3.) Before proceeding further with merits of the Petitions, it is necessary to first deal with preliminary objection raised by Mr. Kshirsagar, the learned counsel appearing for Respondents about maintainability of the Petitions. According to him Part-I Award deciding the issues of fairness in inquiry and perversity in findings cannot be challenged during pendency of determination of remaining issues by way of Part-II Award. Relying on the judgment of the Apex Court in The Cooper Engineering Ltd. vs. P.P. Mundhe,AIR 1975 SC 1900. he would submit that the Apex Court has held in paragraph 22 of the judgment as under: