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TITLE : Wheels India Ltd. V Ganesh Bajirao Vishwasrao

CORAM : Hon’ble Justice Sandeep V Marne

DATE :  22^nd  December, 2023

CITATION : WP No. 992 of 2022

FACTS

Petitioners wheels India has filed a petition challenging Part – II of the award of the Industrial Tribunal directing them to reinstate the respondent from continuing service and pay 50% backwages for the period of march 2014 to December 2015. The tribunal held the punishment of dismissal was disproportionate. The backdrop is that the Wheels India Workers Union demanded for issuance of shares of the company’s permanent employees. Such demand was not met and the work was stopped by the union members through a notice. The respondent was suspended along with other 5 employees for threatening trainees and contract employees to not return to work the following day.

The enquiry officer found the respondent guilty of the charges against him and he was subsequently dismissed from service. The industrial tribunal upon challenging the order by the respondent held that the dismissal proceedings were fair and proper. The second part of the industrial tribunal award was that the dismissal was disproportionate to the charges.

LAWS INVOLVED

Section 2(A)(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 talks about the dismissal of employees and provides for the grievance mechanism to approach the conciliation officer after the expiry of 45 days of such application.

“(2) Notwithstanding anything contained in section l0, any such workman as is specified in sub-section (1) may, make an application direct to the Labour Court or Tribunal for adjudication of the dispute referred to therein after the expiry of forty-five days from the date he has made the application to the Conciliation Officer of the appropriate Government for conciliation of the dispute, and in receipt of such application the Labour Court or Tribunal shall have powers and jurisdiction to adjudicate upon the dispute, as if it were a dispute referred to it by the appropriate Government in accordance with the provisions of this Act and all the provisions of this Act shall apply in relation to such adjudication as they apply in relation to an industrial dispute referred to it by the appropriate Government.”

ISSUES

1. Whether the Industrial Tribunal erred in holding that the dismissal was disproportionate?

JUDGEMENT

The respondent in a recent writ petition wanted to challenge the Part 1 of the award as well along with the current petition. The court held that there was a 5 year difference between the challenges and such is unacceptable to be heard. Furthermore, the court held that there is no valid reason to set aside the part 1 of the award as well.

The court held that the misconduct of threatening other employees with a view to ensure non performance of work by them cannot be considered as a minor or insignificant misconduct. The serious and grave misconduct was also proved by the enquiry officer and the past record is irrelevant in such cases.

Therefore the review of the respondent’s past conduct for awarding a compensation and holding the dismissal disproportionate is erred and unreasonable. The court then set aside the 2^nd part of the award given by the industrial tribunal.  

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Written by- Sanjana Ravichandran

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