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TMI Blog1971 (3) TMI 117X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... t was served on the petitioner on the 16th of March, 1967 and one G. T. Gokhale the personnel manager was appointed the enquiry officer. After the charges were served, for a period of over three months the petitioner successfully staved off any enquiry by giving various excuses. He asked for postponements or adjournments of the enquiry on 11 occasions and ultimately the enquiry commenced on 26th June, 1967. For the purposes of this petition it is futile to recount the tortuous history of these adjournments. It is elaborately set out in the opening paragraph of the Tribunal's order from which the successful filibustering on the part of the petitioner is manifest. Meanwhile the strike itself had been called off on the 25th of May, 1967. 3. The enquiry officer, Gokhale, held the enquiry on the 26th of June, 1967 and on 5th, 13th and 16th of September, 1967. He made a report which was submitted to the respondent-company on the 22nd of September, 1967. On 27th September, 1967, the managing director suspended the petitioner from service with immediate effect and put in an application before the Tribunal for permission to dismiss the petitioner, as another industrial dispute was un ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... hat the language in which they were couched had prejudiced him in his defence. On the other hand, his answer was a complete denial of all the charges. He made positive counter allegation that he had not committed any misconduct. When he stated that the allegations made by the management were false and baseless and are made with mala fide intentions and ulterior motives , surely he could not have stated this unless he had understood what the charges were about and had satisfactorily understood what the allegations against him were. Secondly for a period of over three months the petitioner continued to correspond with his employer, correspondence in which he did nothing more than attempt to postpone the enquiry and ask for adjournments on one ground or another; yet in not a single one of these letters did he ever make the ground that the charges were vague and indefinite and were likely to prejudice him in his defence. The first time that he raised this objection to the charges was before the Tribunal. The Tribunal carefully went through the charges and came to the following conclusion (vide para 7) : It is true that the details of the threat and intimidation have not been men ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... lready given wherein he had stated that on the morning of 13th March, 1967 after K. G. Naik entered the gate of the cone plant he was abused and K. G. Naik heard it being said, You have now gone in, but you will be in our hands tomorrow. The evidence of the subsequent incident was only to show that this threat uttered on 13th March, 1967 was implemented, We can see nothing wrong or irrelevant in this question being allowed. Even so, Gokhale the enquiry officer has made a note that he would not take this evidence into account in judging the charge-sheet against the petitioner. In view of this note, we do not think that any prejudice can possibly arise to the petitioner by the letting in of this evidence. 10. As regards the allegation that the enquiry officer disallowed a large number of questions put by P. R. Rao on behalf of the petitioner, the Tribunal went through these questions and held that the questions have been properly disallowed. These questions have been set out in paragraph 9 of the written statement of the petitioner and since they have been taken into account and considered by the Tribunal, we do not think that we can interfere with that finding. It may, howeve ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he petitioner have appeared and given evidence and a perusal of that evidence does not show that the presence of G. G. Naik had the slightest effect upon them. G. G. Naik himself has given evidence in the case before K. G. Naik was examined and other witnesses on behalf of the management. We do not understand how the enquiry officer could have conducted the enquiry without the presence of G. G. Naik. 13. Lastly, it was urged that the Tribunal has exceeded its jurisdiction in so far as it forgot that it was merely considering an application under S. 33(3) of the Industrial Disputes Act and not considering the question of dismissal of the worker. Particularly the following passage at the end of paragraph 7 of the Tribunal's order was relied on to show excess of jurisdiction : If one reads the evidence of K. G. Naik, Mahalsekar and Fernandez closely one is left with no doubt that the entire act of the opponent in attempting to prevent K. G. Naik from going to work, giving him abuses in filthy language and also telling him of the consequences of his joining work would be serious, amount to issuing him threats and giving him intimidation. It was urged that here the Tribun ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... it has been held inter alia that the employee proceeded against must be clearly informed of the charges against him. We have already shown that in this case the charges were communicated to the petitioner and he has replied and no objection was taken to any defect in the charge-sheet. Therefore, that principle is more than satisfied in the present case. The other authority is the one in Kardah Co. Limited v. Its Workmen, [1963 - II L.L.J. 452], where it has been observed that a domestic enquiry must not be an empty formality. That was a case where the domestic Tribunal had purposed to punish an employee without giving any finding whatsoever and it was in that context that the enquiry was held to be an empty formality. In the present case the facts are quite to the contrary. The enquiry has gone on for an inordinately long time because of the attitude of the petitioner. The enquiry went on for almost four days namely, 26th June, 1967, 5th September, 1967, 13th September, 1967 and 16th September, 1967, and voluminous evidence was recorded and each witness cross-examined at length. The evidence as incorporated in the paper book before us runs into about 42 closely typed sheets. Suc ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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