The jurisdiction of the Labour Court in an industrial dispute arising from the dismissal of a workman is limited to dealing with the merits of the impugned orders only if it could properly come to the conclusion either that the domestic enquiries were not validly or properly held or that the findings given by the enquiry officers were vitiated either by reason of their being in breach of the rules of natural justice or perverse or contrary to the evidence.

ORDER :

Ismail, J.-The dismissal of five workmen and the suspension of another ten workmen employed in the Ennore Foundries Ltd, Ennore. gave rise to an industrial dispute, which was referred to the adjudication of the Labour Court, Madras, by the Government in G.O.R. No. 749, Industries, Labour and Housing dated April 25, 1967. The dispute with reference to the suspension of the ten workmen, after the filing of the claim and counter, was settled out of court and a joint memorandum to that effect was filed before the Labour Court on December 6, 1967. Consequently, the Labour Court had to deal with the reference relating to the dismissal of five workmen, namely, P.A. Verghese, P.S. Mani, A. Doss, Mohanram and Devasahayam. By an award made by the Labour Court on June 14, 1968, it came to the conclusion that the circumstances indicated that the dismissal of Verghese was more a case of victimisation than a case of trying to enforce discipline in the interests of the industry. It was also of the view that normally he should be reinstated, though perhaps without any back wages, because there was some misconduct at least; but in the circumstances of the case, reinstatement would not be beneficial either to the workmen or to the management and, therefore, in the opinion of the Labour Court, a liberal compensation of 15 months' salary inclusive of dearness allowance and, other allowances would be sufficient compensation for the four years service of Verghese, besides any gratuity that may be due to him in law. With regard to Mani, Doss and Mohanram, the Labour Court came to the conclusion that their dismissal did not seem to be just or proper. Here again, instead of directing reinstatement of the workmen, the Labour Court stated that payment of 20 months' salary for each of the three workmen, inclusive of dearness allowance and other allowances, by way of compensation would meet the ends of justice since they had each put in five years of service. With regard to Devasahayam, the Labour Court recorded:

In the circumstances I feel that no injustice has been done and that after a proper enquiry and a just finding that he had misconducted himself he was properly punished.

An argument that was advanced before the Labour Court was that the charge memos as well as the orders of dismissal in respect of the five workers were not issued or signed by the proper authority and therefore from that point of view also, the orders of dismissal were illegal. The Labourt Court was of the view that it was unnecessary to discuss this aspect in greater detail, as it had given a finding on other aspects and passed final orders. Against this award of the Labour Court, the workmen have filed W.P. No. 3771 of 1968 challenging the award in so far as the Labour Court, instead of reinstating Verghese, Mani, Doss, and Mohanram, had directed payment of compensation only and in so far as it had held that the dismissal of Devasahayam was justified. As against this, the management has filed W.P. No. 1526 of J969 contending that the finding and the conclusion of the Labour Court that Verghese was dismissed more by way of victimisation than by way of maintenance of discipline was erroneous and equally the finding of the Labour Court that the dismissal of Mani, Doss and Mohanram did not seem to be just and proper and was illegal.

2. In support of the respective contentions of the parties a large number of decisions were cited before me and each wanted me to hold that the award of the Labour Court to the extent to which it adversely affected the case of the respective parties is illegal and is liable to be set aside. In view of the conclusion I have come to and the order I propose to pass, it may not be necessary to go into all the details except to indicate the legal position which the Labour Court had failed to bear in mind, when passing the award in question. 1 propose to quash the award of the Labour Court except to a limited extent and remand the matter to the Labour Cou