DECISION This is an appeal against the order of the Labour Court allowing the application made under section 25-A,
1. R. O. And ordering reinstate--ment with full back benefits.
2. The respondent was in the employment of the appellant. On 22-2-1977 he was served with a charge-sheet for undesirable activities enumerated therein and was also suspended for 4 days.
On 23-2-1977 he submitted his reply but it was not found satisfactory and enquiry was ordered to be held against him on 25-2-1977.
3. The suspension was extended from time to time for 4 (lays at a time and finally it was extended upto 17-3-1977. No further order of suspension was passed, and therefore, the respondent was :squired to resume his duties on 183-1977.
4. Here arises the dispute between the parties. According to the respondent he reported for duty on 18-3-1977 but he was not allowed to enter the premises of the factory and finally he was served with an order of dismissal dated 10-5-1977. Aggrieved by this he served a grievance notice and approached the Labour Court.
5. The application was resisted and it was pleaded that the res--pondent did not resume his duty on 18-3-1977 and continuously remained absent. Since the period of his absence exceeded 10 days a report regarding his absence was made to the General Manager on 28-3-1977. It was decided to charge-sheet the respondent for taking necessary action. The charge-sheet was sent to the respondent by post on his Karachi address which was given by him at the time of his appointment and entered in the service sheet. The envelope was, however, returned undelivered as according to endorsement no post could be delivered without the care of somebody living in the locality. The charge-sheet was repeated and sent again by post but was received back undelivered with the same endorsement. Consequently the charge-sheet was published in the newspaper but the respondent failed to make any reply. So ex parte enquiry was ordered and the date of the enquiry was notified in the newspaper. The Enquiry Officer made a report finding the respondent guilty of absence for more than 10 days. A second show--cause notice was published in the newspaper but there was no response from the side of the respondent. Consequently he was dismissed from service.
6. Evidence was tendered by both the parties. On the assessment of evidence the learned Presiding Officer on the basis of evidence which was tendered before him came to the conclusion that the appellant had failed to prove that the respondent had remained absent since 18th March 1977.
According to his findings none of the witnesses examined had any personal knowledge about the absence of the appellant. On the other hand he accepted the testimony of the appellant and his witnesses who were the co-workers. On the basis of that finding he passed the impugned order.
Aggrieved by this the present appeal had been filed.
7. On perusal of the record and proceedings and hearing the arguments I see no reason to take a different view from the one taken by the learned Presiding Officer. None of the witnesses had personal knowledge about the absence of the respondent with effect from the date as alleged. It was a case of the respondent that he was appearing at the gate and there was no evidence to show that anybody went to the gate to verify as to whether the respondent had appeared or not.
All the witnesses had remained in their office and so they could not be in a position to verify as to the truth of the assertion made by the respondent.
8. Another important factor which weighed with me is that in case the respondent had not been appearing how did he appear on 13th May, 1977, when an order of dismissal dated 10th May, 1977 was served. It seems to me that the management had already made up its mind to dispense with the service of the respondent and despite the fact that one enquiry was already ordered and it was never concluded, another device was thought to victimize the respondent. The suspension orders were passed from time to time from 22nd February, 1977, ending on 31st March, 1977 and it is not denied that the respondent had been appearing on every occasion when suspension orders were issued. Consequently it is unbelievable that on 18th March, 1977 when he was required to resume his duties he chose to remain absent. This fortifies the conclusion that in order to avoid action on the previous charge-sheet for reasons best known to the Management an easy way was thought of to remove the respondent from the scene. It is with this view that after waiting for 10 days a fresh charge-sheet was issued and sent by post. Even that was never served. It was also pointed out .By the learned Counsel for the respondent that if on the Karachi address the respondent was not served, it was the duty of the management to send the same on the permanent home address which was also in the service sheet. Thus failure to take proper steps to serve the respondent there was no justification for publish--ing the notice in the newspaper which probably was never read by the respondent. None of the notices was posted on the notice board of the factory. This was purposely avoided in order to keep the respondent in dark about the fresh charge-sheet and enquiry.
9. In the result the appeal is dismissed.