Termination of services of employee.

This is an appeal from the judgment of Balakrishna Iyer, J., making absolute the rule nisi and quashing the Award of the Labour Court,. Madras, in I.D. No. 27 of 1958. The appellant Venkatiah was employed in the Buckingham and Carnatic Mills Co., Ltd., the respondent. Service under the company is regulated by certain Standing Orders. Standing Order 8, sub-clause (2), provides that any employee who absents himself for eight consecutive working days without leave shall be deemed to have left the company’s service without notice thereby terminating his contract of service. If however he gives an explanation to the satisfaction of the management that his absence was due to sickness, then such absence shall be converted into medical leave for such period as the employee is eligible ; even otherwise, if he gives an explanation to the satisfaction of the management, the absence shall be converted into leave without pay or dearness allowance.

Venkatiah was granted leave by the management for a few days on 10th January, 1957. He was to have joined duty on 19th January, 1957. He did not do so till 11th March, 1957 when he appeared before the Labour Officer of the Mills and applied for treating his previous absence as one on medical leave. He enclosed with his letter of request, a medical certificate issued by the Civil Assistant Surgeon, Government Hospital, Kanigiri, a place very near his village to which he had gone immediately he was granted leave. This certificate confirmed Venkatiah’s version that he was suffering from fever and dysentery for a period of nearly two months, i.e., from 15th January, 1957 to 8th March, 1957. The employee is one to whom the provisions of the Employees’ State Insurance Act would apply. Immediately on his arrival at Madras in March, 1957 he reported himself to the Medical Officer of the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation at Perambur. That Officer advised him to report himself to the Medical Officer to the company. He appeared before the Senior Medical Officer attached to the mills on 22nd March, 1957, who made the following report, to the management:-

“I have examined the worker and am unable to confirm that he was ill for a period of nearly two months.”

Before continuing the narrative it will be pertinent to make an observation about the certificate which at best can only be described as vague. It is not clear what the Medical Officer meant by saying that he was unable to confirm that he (worker) was ill. Was it his opinion that he was not able to find at the time when the worker presented himself before him for medical examination about his antecedent illness and say that the statement of the worker that he was actually ill during the relevant time was true, or was it merely his opinion that it was not possible to say at the time when he examined the worker whether he was ill or not? It is not rare that certain persons particularly those belonging to the working class recover from their illness very quickly and any clinical examination undertaken, as in the present case, two weeks after recovery from illness, might not reveal any signs of their having been ill previously. It is not even possible to state with certainty from the terms of the certificate whether it was the Doctor’s opinion that the worker was not ill at all or that he was not ill for two months as claimed by the worker.

To resume the narrative, the management appears to have taken the certificate to mean that the worker was not at all suffering from any illness during the period claimed by him. It is stated in the counter-affidavit filed before the Labour Court on behalf of the management that a letter was sent by them to the worker concerned, on the same day rejecting his explanation. That letter has, however, not been produced. Nor is there any evidence about service of the same. The employee states in his letter, dated 2nd May, 1957 to the Regional Director, Employees’ State Insurance Corporation, Madras, tha