An Industrial Tribunal is justified in interfering with the finding of a domestic tribunal if the domestic tribunal has cast the burden on the workmen to prove their innocence or has committed a serious error of record.

Narasimham, J.

1. This is an application by the employees to quash the order of the Presiding Officer, Central Government Industrial Tribunal, Dhanbad, holding that the order of dismissal of three of its workmen, namely, Basdeo Pashwan, Bhairo Mandal and Upendra Mandal, minors, as unjustified, and ordering consequential reliefs.

2. The three workmen were charged with theft of coal while working inside the petitioners colliery on the 10th July 1962. A departmental enquiry was held by the Welfare Officer of the petitioners Company. Some witnesses were examined on behalf of the management and some on behalf of the workmen, the report of the Welfare Officer (Annexure B) shows that the theft was alleged to have been committed while the workmen were cutting coal from a portion somewhere between 15 feet and 25 feet from the working face, and the mining Sardar, Sri G C Roy, who was the principal witness for the management, actually seized one of the workmen while the alleged misconduct was being committed. The defence of the three workmen was that they were cutting bona fide coal from a portion of the working face about 10 feet wide, and hence there could be no question of their committing theft of coal. Having thus summarised briefly the evidence adduced by the management and by the workmen the Welfare Officer gave his conclusions as follows:-

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"From the evidence on record, I am inclined to feel that the accused have failed to prove their innocence with regard to the charge brought against them. Moreover, in their chargesheet explanations, they have pleaded about some incident which might have taken place in the month of June, while the reported incident took place on the 10th of July. When this was pointed out to the three accused by the undersigned, they just declined to say anything in addition to their chargesheet explanations. The statement of Sri Prasadi Ram also points to their guilt. Sri Ham Gorais statement could not be taken as he was on leave."

Acting on his report, the employer dismissed the workmen.

3 The learned Tribunal, after quoting the aforesaid passage in the report of the Welfare Officer, held that the Welfare Officer wrongly cast the onus on the workmen to prove their innocence, whereas in respect of a charge of this type brought by the employer against their workmen the primary onus of proving the charge satisfactorily rested with the employer. The Tribunal thought that this wrong approach to the whole question was responsible for the conclusion arrived at by the Welfare Officer. He also observed that the Welfare Officer committed a serious error of record in saying that the statement of Sri Prasadi Ram points to the guilt of the workmen. The Tribunal quoted from the evidence of Prasadi Ram, which was to the effect that the workmen merely picked up coal (and not committed theft) at a distance of 10 to 15 feet from the face. This evidence of Prasadi Ram would thus support the defence of the workmen and not corroborate the evidence of the Mining Sardar G. C. Roy, on which the case of the management mainly rested. The Tribunal further observed that the enquiry was not held in a fair manner inasmuch as important witnesses and documents were not examined or produced by the management, and the workmen also were not given the opportunity to see the documents which were before the Enquiry Officer His final conclusion was as follows:

"For the reasons given above, I hold that the enquiry was unfair, illegal and irregular and violative of principles of natural justice and further that the finding of the Enquiry Officer is perverse as mentioned above."

4. The main contention of Mr. Balbhadra Prasad Singh for the petitioner employer is that the Tribunal exceeded its jurisdiction in interfering with the finding of guilt arrived at in a domestic enquiry which was based on some evidence. According to him, the charges against the delinquent employees were specific, a regular enquiry was made by the Welfare Officer durin