The Labour Appellate Tribunal has jurisdiction to decide an application for permission to dismiss a workman under Section 22 of the Industrial Disputes (Appellate Tribunal) Act, 1950, and in deciding such an application, the Tribunal must consider the grounds on which the application is made and express a view on whether the punishment sought to be inflicted is justified in the circumstances of the particular case.

JUDGMENT :

DESAI, J.

1. This is a petition for a writ of certiorari against the second respondent, the Labour Appellate Tribunal of India, in a matter decided by it and relating to the dismissal of the petitioner by the first respondent.

2. The petitioner's case is that; he has been an employee of the first respondents for nine years. In respect of certain disputes between their employees and the first respondents an appeal was pending before the Labour Appellate Tribunal, the second respondent. Pending that appeal the first respondents decided to dismiss the petitioner. As there was the appeal pending in respect of an industrial dispute the first respondents were u/s 22 of the Industrial Disputes (Appellate Tribunal) Act bound to apply to the second respondent for permission to dismiss the petitioner. They preferred such an application to the second respondent, and the second respondent granted the permission asked for. It is against that order of the second respondent that this petition has been preferred.

3. The ground on which the order of dismissal was sought to be made was that the petitioner had deliberately slowed down production. The allegation was that the petitioner was on that ground guilty of misconduct and, therefore, liable to be dismissed. An inquiry was held by the first respondents and a charge-sheet was prepared. The petitioner appeared before the first respondents and the entire proceedings which consisted of questions and answers are annexed to the petition as Ex. B. As I have already stated at the end of one inquiry the first respondents decided to dismiss the petitioner and applied for sanction u/s 22 of the Industrial Disputes (Appellate Tribunal) Act.

4. The second respondent considered the grounds on which the application was made. It appears that the grounds urged before the Appellate Tribunal were substantially the same as urged before me in this petition. The petitioner in his petition raises a number of contentions but I shall only refer to and deal with those which were urged before me by Mr. Rajni Patel, learned Counsel for the petitioner.

5. The first contention urged by Mr. Patel was that there was a failure on the part of the second respondent to exercise jurisdiction. He drew my attention to paragraph 6 of the judgment of the Labour Appellate Tribunal, in which it was stated that it was clear to the tribunal this was not a solitary act of slowing down of the work by an employee but that it was the result of a concerted action and that it was done because certain demands of the workmen had not been met by the company. That there was slowing1 down of the work could not be seriously disputed before the tribunal although a feeble attempt was made before me by learned Counsel that there was no slowing down of the work. lam not sitting in appeal and am not entitled to go into the findings recorded by the Tribunal and which are baaed on proper material.

6. It was argued before me-this was the principal point argued before-that the slowing down was deliberate because the workmen had certain grievances which had not been redressed. The second respondent in its judgment observed that the more fact that such a statement was made did not mean that there was in fact any grievance but even if there was such grievance the course permissible to the petitioner was not, to do an act which would amount to misconduct on his part but to seek redress in proper proceedings. The second respondent expressed a view that it could not sit down in the application before it to decide the question of this grievance, nor can it take the view that because there was such a grievance the slowing down tactics were justified. Learned Counsel argued this point at considerable length but in my opinion there is little substance in this contention of the petitioner. The tribunal was only concerned with deciding the questions: "Was the Act complained of established, and if so, did it amount to misconduct, and whether the punishment sought