JUDGMENT :

P.C. :-

1. This matter was admitted by order dated 25/2/2021. On the condition of depositing the back wages, the impugned award granting reinstatement in service with continuity and full back wages, dated 9/8/2013 delivered by the first Labour Court Pune, had been stayed.

2. The second party workman before the Labour Court has preferred Civil Application No.523 of 2022 seeking a direction for depositing remaining back wages as well as consequential reliefs. However, the Writ Petition is itself taken up by consent for a final hearing.

3. Having heard the learned counsel for the respective sides for quite some time, it would be apposite to reproduce the admitted factors hereunder :-

(a) The respondent worker joined duties as a machine operator on 1/2/1982.

(b) In between 1982 and 1998, he has received 9 orders of suspension, for minor misconducts, as punishment.

(c) Vide charge-sheet dated 2/4/1999, an allegation of unauthorized absence for 57 days between January 1998 till December 1998, was levelled upon him.

(d) Unless there are three instances of unauthorized absenteeism in a calendar year, the charge of habitual absenteeism would not be sustained.

(e) The Enquiry Officer held that the workman was guilty of habitual absence without leave as the number of his absence exceeded three days.

(f) By order dated 28/9/1999, the workman was dismissed from service.

(g) The worker raised an industrial dispute under Section 2A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 and being a deemed industrial dispute, the matter was referred to the First Labour Court, Pune for adjudication, which was registered as Reference (IDA) No.527 of 2000.

(h) In deference to the settled position of law, the Labour Court framed 2 issues pertaining to the fairness of the enquiry and the legality of the findings of the Enquiry Officer.

(i) By the Part-1 award dated 11/8/2016, the Labour Court concluded that the Enquiry was conducted in adherence to the principles of natural justice and could not be vitiated. It also concluded that the findings of the Enquiry Officer are not perverse.

(j) The workman has not challenged the part-1 award before any Court.

(k) In the final award dated 9/8/2019 impugned in this petition, the Labour Court, though concluded that the surviving issue was whether the punishment was shockingly disproportionate and whether the same could be modified as per Section 11A of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, granted reinstatement in service with continuity and full back wages to the workman.

4. Having considered the record available and the submissions of the learned counsel for the respective sides, it is apparent that the Labour Court was aware of the legal position that, once the enquiry is sustained and the findings of the Enquiry Officer are accepted, it could only consider the proportionality of the punishment. Under Section 11A, it could consider whether a punishment lesser than the one amounting to a shockingly disproportionate punishment could be granted. Surprisingly, the Labour Court granted reinstatement in service with continuity and full back wages with all consequential benefits from the date of dismissal and apparently lost sight of the fact that it was supposed to mould the relief under Section 11A, in view of The Workmen of Firestone Tyre & Rubber Co. of India (Pvt) Ltd Vs. The Management and ors, 1973 AIR 1227. By the impugned order, it actually rewarded the worker whose misconduct was proved.

5. In the light of the above, as the impugned award would not be sustainable, considering the scope of Section 11A, this Court, while exercising it’s jurisdiction under the Writ of Certiorari, can suitably mould the relief.

6. As the workman was unauthorizedly absent for 57 days and the earlier 9 punishments of suspension, which can be considered as an aggravating factor, are not in relation to any act of unauthorized absenteeism, the punishment of dismissal from service would be shockingly disproportionate. Reinstatement in service would, theref