HINDUSTAN ANTIBIOTICS LTD Vs. RAMDAS TRIMBAK DESHMUKH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These petitions filed by the two petitioners, out of whom petitioner No. 1 is a public limited company and petitioner No. 2 is its Managing Director, arise out of four civil suits which are filed by the four employees of petitioner No. 1 company challenging the action of the employer in instituting disciplinary proceedings against them and appointing one Mr. Mahomed Hussein Shaikh, a retired Labour Court Judge, now at Poona, as an Enquiry Officer to enquire into the charges framed against the employees.

(2.) It is not disputed that the plaints in all the four suits filed by the four employees are identically worded and are based on identical facts. It is enough, therefore, to refer to the averments made in regular civil suit No. 8 of 1976 which was filed by one Mr. Chandrakant Dattatraya Janvekar out of which Special Civil Applications Nos. 2390 and 2391 of 1976 arise. The respondent-employee was originally suspended by an order dated August 9, 1975 by an order made by petitioner No. 2 who is the Managing Director. This order came to be revoked on August 14, 1975 with the result that the petitioner's suspension was discontinued and he continued to attend his duties. Then on September 19, 1975 a communication was sent to the employee intimating to him that Mr. Shaikh has been appointed as an Enquiry Officer to enquire into certain charges framed against the employees and the employee was called upon to state whether he desired to be heard in person, to furnish the names and addresses of the witnesses, if any, whom he wished to call in support of his defence and to furnish a list of documents, if any, which he wanted to produce in support of his defence. Statement of allegations was enclosed with this communication which shows that there were as many as twelve charges framed against the employee. Amongst other things the misconducts complained of relate to his coming late on duty, not following the prescribed leave procedures, wilful insurbordination and disobedience of a lawful and reasonable order of a superior and inciting the workers to go slow in work and to damage equipment and spreading rumours during the period July 8, 1975 to July 18, 1975. It appears that after the Enquiry Officer was appointed, the employee took part in the enquiry for sometime. He had requested that he should be given some assistance of a fellow employee since his application for assistance of a lawyer was rejected. That request of his was granted and even his request to have another employee as observer was also granted. The Department was represented by the Personnel Officer and the enquiry proceeded till October 17, 1973 when the employee made a request that there should be a joint enquiry in respect of all the employees against whom enquiries were instituted. On this request being rejected, the employee asked for adjournment which was granted on three occasions and when the enquiry proceedings were fixed for January 6, 1976, the four employees against whom similar enquiries were being made filed four suits in the Court of the Civil Judge, Senior Division, Poona. The claim of these employees in the suits is that sometime in July 1973 respondent Chandrakant along with some other office bearers and active members of the union had been to New Delhi and personally acquainted the Prime Minister of India and the other Union Ministers with the affairs of the petitioner company and they were apprised of the fact that the conduct of petitioner No. 2, the Managing Director, had resulted in financial loss to the company and unrest amongst the workers of the defendant company. In fact, according to the plaintiff, a demand for removal of petitioner No. 2 was made. It is on account of this that, according to the plaintiff Chandrakant, the Managing Director started harassing him and tried to victimise him firstly by issuing an order of suspension on August 9, 1975 and then by instituting an enquiry and appointing an Enquiry Officer on September 19, 1975. The bald averment made in the plaint is that all the orders passed by defendant No. 2 including the order revoking the plaintiff's suspension were ultra vires and were grounded upon express malice and improper motive just to get rid of the plaintiff. Some grievance was also made of an order transferring the plaintiff to another department. The prayer made in the plaint was that the orders dated August 9, 1975 and August 14, 1975 were ultra vires "the statutory and administrative rules, vindictive, illegal, penal and grounded on the express malice and, therefore, bad in law, inoperative and not binding on the plaintiff". A further prayer made in the plaint shows that the plaintiff wanted it to be declared "that the order No. PER/S-2576/25/75 dated September 19, 1975 appointing the Enquiry Officer to institute disciplinary proceedings against the plaintiff after the order of reinstatement dated August 19, 1975 is ultra vires the statutory and administrative rules, vindictive, illegal, penal and grounded on the malice and, therefore, bad in law, inoperative and not binding on the plaintiff". On the same day on which the suit was filed an application for ad interim injunction under Order XXXIX of the Civil Procedure Code (CrPC) was made asking for an injunction that the defendants, their agents, servants, representatives, etc. be restrained from holding any enquiry or to proceed with any enquiry till the final disposal of the suit filed by the plaintiff. It appears that the learned Judge dealt with the matter during vacation at his residence and passed an extremely cryptic order in the following terms:

(3.) It is contended on behalf of the petitioners by Mr. Paranjape that the trial Court has acted in excess of jurisdiction in entertaining the suit and it has fallen in a grievous error when it proceeded to issue an injunction in the matter of employment restraining the petitioner company from proceeding with the enquiry proceedings on the basis of charge-sheets framed against the four employees.