Labour Court cannot order reinstatement on the ground of subsequent good conduct.

The Order of the Court was as follows :

The petitioner Pandiyan Roadways Corporation filed this writ petition challenging the award of the Labour Court, Madurai dated 15-12-1992 in so far as it pertains to the order of reinstatement granted by the Labour Court, though, it had found that the respondent V. Kasi was guilty of having misappropriated the corporations amount.

The factual panorama is somewhat like this. Admittedly, the respondent V. Kasi was working in the petitioner Corporation for 16 years. He was working as a Conductor and was operating the bus bearing Regn. No. TCP 4237 on Erode to Devakottai and Madurai route. On 15-2-1989 while the said bus was proceeding towards Madurai, the Checking Inspector was checking the bus on the Devakottai Road and when they got into the bus in which the respondent was the Conductor for the purpose of checking, they found that the respondent was attempting to write the invoice hastily. The said invoice was snatched by the Checking Inspector in which the last entry appeared to be that the respondent had collected money for 3 1/2 tickets for the journey from Devakottai to Madurai. On the passengers being checked, it was found that there were in all 14 1/2 passengers in the bus out of whom only 11 had the tickets and 3 1/2 passengers did not have the necessary tickets. On the said passengers being questioned, one of them, viz., Thirunavukkarasu gave out that they gave Rs. 35/-to the Conductor after boarding the bus at Devokottai towards the fare and the Conductor had given them back Rs. 2.40 having charged Rs. 32.60 for 3.5 tickets from Devakottai to Madurai. The said person insisted that the Conductor had not given any tickets much less 3 1/2 tickets to them and that this is how they were found without tickets. The said statement of the passenger was recorded. The statement of the Driver was also recorded and ultimately a domestic enquiry was ordered against the respondent who was suspended on 23-2-1989.After obtaining his explanation, the domestic enquiry was concluded in which the statement recorded by the Checking Inspector from Thirunavukarasu, the statement of the driver and the statement of the respondent, etc. were relied on. Not only this, the Checking Inspector himself was also examined. As a result of the enquiry, the Enquiry Officer came to the conclusion that the respondent had misappropriated Rs. 32.60 by not giving the tickets to the passengers when he had taken the amount from those passengers towards the fare between Devakottai to Madurai. The said Enquiry Officer also concluded that the respondent had tried to hastily write in the invoice and in that process, he could only write part of the entry and therefore, concluded that the respondent was guilty of the charge framed against him. Thereafter considering the past record of the respondent which showed the previous punishments for the same irregularity, the respondent was ordered to be dismissed from service.

The matter was taken to the Labour Court and the Labour Court framed four issues before it, the first issue being regarding the nature of the enquiry. Ultimately, the Labour Court came to the conclusion on the basis of the evidence let in before it that the enquiry itself was held coping up with the rules of natural justice since all the opportunities were given to the respondent during enquiry. It has discussed the correctness of the finding of the Enquiry Officer and has put the seal of approval on this finding. The Labour Court seems to have gone into the whole enquiry threadbare, perused all the statements as also perused the evidence let in before the Enquiry Officer by the Checking Inspector and has come to the conclusion that the enquiry was good and that the findings were also justifiable.It was tried to be shown before the Labour Court on behalf of the Conductor/respondent that the findings themselves could not be correct for the simple reason that the passenger who was found to be without ticke