IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision : July 03, 2025 Amrik Dass Bhatti .. Petitioner Versus Presiding Officer, Central Govt. Industrial Tribunal-cum- Labour Court -II, Chandigarh and another .. Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE HARSIMRAN SINGH SETHI Present: Mr. Amarjit Singh, Advocate, for the petitioner.

Mr. Saurav Verma, Advocate, with Ms. Preeti Grover, Advocate, for respondent No.2.

HARSIMRAN SINGH SETHI J. (ORAL)

1. In the present writ petition, the challenge is to the Award dated 01.04.2019 (Annexure P-8) by which, the claim raised by the petitioner before the Labour Court challenging the order of dismissal dated

07.01.2003 (Annexure P-4/A), has been rejected.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the Labour Court has ignored the various aspects including the fact that the punishment of dismissal imposed was disproportionate to the charges alleged and proved and further that the report given by the Enquiry Officer proving the allegations against the petitioner was not based upon sufficient evidence.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner further submits that once a prayer was made before the Labour Court that the evidence was not enough to prove the charges, the same should have been evaluated by the Labour Court to find out as to whether the charges were proved on the basis of sufficient evidence or the punishment of dismissal imposed upon the petitioner was valid or was disproportionate to the charges alleged and proved.

4. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of respondent No. 2 submits that the allegations of misconduct were alleged against the petitioner and were proved in the departmental proceedings and thereafter giving due opportunity of hearing to the petitioner, order of punishment dated 07.01.2003 was passed, which fact has been appreciated by the Tribunal in a manner required and the claim of the petitioner that punishment of dismissal was disproportionate to the charges alleged has rightly been rejected hence, impugned Award dated 01.04.2019 (Annexure P-8) may kindly be upheld.

5. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the record with their able assistance.

6. The first argument which has been raised by the learned counsel for the petitioner is that there was not enough evidence to prove the allegations and the Enquiry Officer wrongly proved the allegations alleged against the petitioner.

7. It is a settled principle of law that the Courts can only interfere with the punishment imposed in departmental proceedings where there was a case of no evidence. Sufficiency of evidence to prove the allegation alleged against an employee cannot be gone into by the Court. Reliance can be placed upon the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in Civil Appeal No.8546-8549 of 2024 titled as The State of Rajasthan and others vs. Bhupendra Singh, decided on 08.08.2024 wherein, it has been held that the sufficiency of evidence cannot be gone into by the Court so as to conduct the proceedings as Appellate Authority and it is only in the case where there is no evidence, the Court can intervene. The relevant paragraphs 21 and 24 of the said judgment are as under:- “21. Having considered the matter, the Court finds that the Impugned Judgment cannot be sustained. On a prefatory note, we would begin by quoting what the Division Bench has noted on page No.7: ‘It is well settled preposition (sic) of law that courts will not act as an Appellate Court and re-assess the evidence led in domestic enquiry, nor interfere on the ground that another view was possible on the material on record. If the enquiry has been fairly and properly held and findings are based on evidence, the question of adequacy of evidence or reliable nature of the evidence will be no ground for interfering with the finding in departmental enquiry. However, when the finding of fact recorded in departmental enquiry is based on no evidence or where it is clearly perverse then it will invite the