PATIALA DISTRICT COOPERATIVE MILK PRODUCERS UNION LIMITED Vs. LD PRESIDING OFFICER, INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNAL, PATIALA AND ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) I have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the paper-book.

(2.) After holding the enquiry fair and proper, the Presiding Officer, Industrial Tribunal, Patiala has invoked its jurisdiction under Sec. 11-A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (for short "the Act") to convert the dismissal with an award of reinstatement, but without backwages. The Tribunal has found the severity of punishment disproportionate to the charge of absence from duty. A few necessary facts may be noticed.

(3.) The private respondent was appointed as Dairy Labour-cumCleaner in the petitioning Cooperative Milk Producers Union on 12th Oct., 1992. Her services were regularised on 24th Aug., 1996. In the month of July, 1998, the respondent's daughter went missing never to return home. Many years later, she was declared civilly dead by a decree dated 10th April, 2015 passed by the Court of Civil Judge (Jr.Divn.), Patiala. The previous record of service from 1992 to April, 1998 was regular with marginal leave of absences, maximum of which was 41 days in 1997. However, her absences after May, 1998 till Aug., 2001 were 192 in 1998, 263 in 1999, 177 in 2000 and 187 in 2001. The respondent does not dispute this position on record, but goes on to explain in her pleadings and deposition before the Tribunal that she wrote letters to the Milk Union requesting leave from time to time which were not granted inasmuch as no orders on them were conveyed to her. She says that her absence was neither willful nor deliberate, but was occasioned by her relentless search to trace the whereabouts of her daughter.