Remand of matter of Labour Court for determination of termination as wrongful or not.

S. Nainar Sundaram, J.

1. This writ appeal directed against the order of the learned sing Judge in W.P. No. 4085 of 1980. That was as petition preferred by the first respondent questioning the Award of the second respondent I.D. No. 270 of 1978. By that Award, non-employment of the appellant by the (SIC) respondent was held to be not justified, and the was a direction for reinstatement of the appellant with continuity of service, back wages and other attendant benefits. It will be convenient if we refer to the parties as per their array in the writ petition. The first-respondent was in the employ of the petitioner as a van driver. The finding rendered by the second respondent in the industrial dispute is to the effect that the employment of the first respondent with the petitioner commenced on 29.5.1973. According to the first-respondent, his services were terminated without any reasonable cause in April, 1978. According to the petitioner, the first-respondent left the services on his own altar an accident in which the van driven by the first respondent was involved. The petitioner did not put forth a case be any disciplinary action and an order of dismissal following after the finding in the disciplinary action going against the first respondent. Equally so, the petitioner did not advance a case that the services of the first -respondent were retrenched after satisfying the provisions there for under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, hereinafter referred to as the Act. The simple case of the petitioner was that after the accident the first-respondent abandoned the services under the petitioner. Before the second respondent, the parties placed their evidence, oral and documentary, in the course of the industrial adjudication, in support of their respective cases. That was the subject matter of scrutiny and assessment by the second-respondent and the second-respondent came to the conclusion that the case of the petitioner that the first respondent abandoned the services cannot be accepted and it is a case of termination of the services of the first respondent by the petitioner. Thus finding that the non-employment of the first-respondent by the petitioner is not justified, the second-respondent passed an award, as already referred to. The award of she second-respondent was put in issue in the writ petition.

2. The learned single Judge, who dealt with and disposed of the writ petition, countenanced a stand, out forth on behalf of the services of the first-respondent without any enquiry by the petitioner, there ought to have been an opportunity afforded to the petitioner to substantiate its case, that the termination of the services of the first-respondent was not wrongful and for that purpose there ought to be an enquiry and this has got to be done by the second-respondent and the second-respondent, having not indulged in such an enquiry there is need to frown "upon the award passed by second-respondent. As a result, the learned single Judge allowed the writ petition and remitted the matter back to the second-respondent to hold an enquiry and render a finding as to whether the termination of the services of the first respondent was wrongful or not.

3. Mr. T. Fenn Walter, learned Counsel for the first-respondent, would submit that the case of the petitioner having been one of abandonment of services by the first-respondent and not termination of services on disciplinary action on charges of misconduct and once that case has been found against, there was no necessity or warrant for remitting the matter back to the second-respondent to probe into the matter to find out as to whether the termination is wrongful or not. Accordingly to the learned Counsel for the first-respondent, this contingency will arise only when the specific case of the petitioner was one of dismissal for charges of misconduct and there was an omission to hold an enquiry and render a finding thereon. This contention of the learned Counsel for the first res