KEGG FARMS PRIVATE LIMITED Vs. PRESIDING OFFICER, INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNAL-CUM-LABOUR COURT, GURGAON AND ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Labour Court's award directing reinstatement and partial back wages of a Statician-Genetics, is challenged by the management before this Court. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner would submit that he had been employed to collect, collate, interpret and present genetical data in a supervisory grade in the organization and when it came to the information of the management that he was acting against the interest of the management by leaking of confidential information, order of termination was issued on 09.04.1981 by an offer to pay one month's wages in lieu of a notice as provided under clause 14 of the terms of employment. The learned counsel would submit that the Labour Court had erred in finding the termination to be bad and that the case of loss of confidence in a sensitive post that he was occupying, was not properly appreciated.

(2.) In support of his contention, the learned counsel relies on the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Air India Corporation, Bombay v. V.A. Rabello and another, 1972 AIR(SC) 1343, that dealt with the case of an employee, who was alleged to have been misbehaved with some Air Hostesses and done acts which eroded the confidence of the Corporation. The Hon'ble Supreme Court held that the termination in terms of regulation that provided for a right to terminate without reason as justified in the given circumstances and held that termination could not be termed as mala fide and would not be subjected to review by industrial adjudication. The learned counsel also refers to the decision of Hon'ble the Supreme Court in The workmen of Sudder Office, Cinnamara v. Management of Sudder Office and another, 1972 4 SCC 746, that dealt with the case of termination of services on the ground of loss of confidence that was sought to be established through departmental enquiry. In Indian Railway Construction Co. Ltd. v. Ajay Kumar, 2003 4 SCC 579, the Hon'ble Supreme Court found in the given case that the reasons for dispensing with enquiry was itself not found to be adequate but still having regard to the long passage of time and loss of confidence in the delinquent, the Hon'ble Court found that there was no scope for reinstatement.

(3.) The learned counsel appearing for the management would respond to the contention by pointing out that loss of confidence cannot be a matter of inference without any basis and a mere unilateral statement without any form of proof or any enquiry preceding termination cannot avail to a management to justify the termination. The learned counsel refers to the findings of the Labour Court which dealt with the issue at length where it was elicited through the management witnesses that although letter of termination was a simpliciter discharge, the decision was taken only on account of alleged parting of secret information. The said suspicion was subject of challenge during the course of enquiry and the Labour Court found that no evidence was forthcoming and the witnesses who ought to have known the same were not examined. The Labour Court also found that even the witnesses who were examined could not say whether there was any secret codes nor could the witnesses give the names of any particular person to whom the codes were purported to have been revealed by the workman. With evidence bereft of all details and even the subjective statement of lack of confidence having no basis, the Labour Court was constrained to direct reinstatement finding the termination to be bad.