Judgement

DAS GUPTA, J. : When under the Standing Orders of a Company the Company is empowered to take disciplinary action against an employee by proceeding in the prescribed manner can that power be legally delegated by the Company to any of its officers? That is the principal question raised in this appeal.

2. The appellant is a Company incorporated under the India Companies Act having its registered office at 12, Mission Row, Calcutta. It is engaged in the generation and distribution of electricity at Jabalpur. The Company s office at Jabalpur is in charge of a Resident Engineer. By a power of attorney given by the appellant company on June 26, 1957, Mr. Leonard Shell Macleod, the Company s Resident Engineer at Jabalpur, was appointed "the company s true and lawful attorney for and in the name of the Company to do exercise and perform all or any of the acts, matters, discretions and things" set out in 11 clauses. The 10th clause provided that "subject to the Standing Orders from time to time given by the Company to appoint, dismiss, suspend or terminate the services of any of the employees of the Company at Jabalpur." On November 12, 1957, the respondent Sambhu Prasad Srivastava w