STATE BANK OF INDIA AND ORS Vs. PRESIDING OFFICER, CENTRAL GOVERNMENT INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNAL-CUM LABOUR COURT, CHANDIGARH AND ORS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner-Bank challenges the order of the Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court accepting the reference made to it on an adjudication sought of whether the termination of service of the private respondents w.e.f. 13.12.1983 was justified or not. It found that, it was not.

(2.) The second respondent was a Clerk-cum-Cashier, who was charged for his alleged negligence in not duly accounting for Rs.30,000/- which had been entrusted to him. The incident was of the larger amount of cash remaining with him, but on 12.05.1980 against the total cash of Rs.2,98,113.44, he had accounted only for Rs.2,68,213.44. The imputation against the employee was that the cash shortage of Rs.30,000/- was on account of alleged gross negligence in the performance of his duties. The contention in defence by the employee was that on that given date, he had left the counter to take the scroll outside and had asked the messenger employee with the Bank, Shri Gurdeep Singh to take care, but when he returned to his counter, he found two packets of Rs.100/- notes and two packets of Rs.50/- notes missing and he had immediately raised an alarm about the shortage. He was, therefore, contending that he was not guilty of negligence but yet another employee, who had been left at the counter, had allowed for the money to go missing and he was himself not responsible for the loss.

(3.) As a matter of admitted event before the issuance of the charge-sheet, it should also be observed that a criminal complaint had been filed with the police for the shortage of cash that had resulted on that day and a case of alleged offence under Section 408 IPC was registered against the second respondent and he was prosecuted before the Criminal Court. During the pendency of the criminal case, the petitioner had been kept under suspension, but after the trial, the Criminal Court returned a finding that the criminal charge attributed to him, had not been established and he was entitled to be acquitted of the charges. The Criminal Court judgment was rendered on 19.01.1982. Against the order of acquittal, there had been an appeal to this Court at the instance of the State which was also dismissed on 26.08.1992. During all the time when the criminal case was pending before the trial Court, the Bank had not taken any independent departmental action. It was after the acquittal that a charge-sheet had been issued imputing an act of gross negligence in the performance of his duties.