SONEPAT URBAN COOPERATIVE BANK LTD Vs. TAPAN KUMAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Learned Additional District Judge, Sonepat vide judgment and decree dated 09.04.1992 decreed the suit against termination of the respondent-employee by applying the principles of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 in a civil proceeding which the civil court had no jurisdiction to apply in a suit. This is clear from reasoning contained in Para.15 of the judgment.

(2.) The employee had a right to opt for either civil or industrial adjudication against his termination order, but the two jurisdictions could not be intermingled by borrowing industrial law principles and applying them to the case declaring the termination illegal and issuing a mandatory injunction to the defendant to reinstate the plaintiff to service of the Bank. Civil Court cannot enforce industrial rights and obligations

(3.) This case was admitted and the decree stayed prima facie in view of the law laid down in Jitendra Nath Biswas Vs. M/s Empire of India & Ceylone Tea Company, 1990 AIR(SC) 255 cited by the Bank to stay the decree. In that case, the Supreme Court held that an employee whose services were terminated cannot seek relief of reinstatement or back-wages in a civil suit instituted before the Civil Court. Before the Civil Court, an employee could seek the relief of damages for breach of contract in case the employer was not a State within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution or other authority under Article 226. I do not express any opinion, whether the appellant Bank qualifies there under. However, the law propounded in Jitendra Nath Biswas s case (supra) has been reiterated time and again by the Supreme Court and other High Courts.