' In the appeal captioned above the decision, dated 29th July, 1982 passed by the learned Presiding Officer, Punjab Labour Court No, 3, Lahore at Ferozewala has been challenged, whereby the respondent was directed to be re-instated in service.
2. The allegation on which the respondent was dismissed from service was that, on 17th November, 1977 the respondent had received Rs, 3,00,000 but instead of entering it in the books of the accounts delivered it to a customer Ghulam Sarwar without any cheque or receipt. This fact is admitted but the contention of the respondent was that he had delivered the amount to the customer on the asking of the Manager. The second charge-sheet was to the effect that "he collaborated with Branch Manager in sanctioning of gold loan to Mr. Ghulam Sarwar, Partner Madina Rice Industries, on 13th September, 1977 without security of gold as is apparent from the remarks of the Zonal Inspector on the relative ledger folio of gold loan ledger No, 6 page 56 reading as under : "Gold ornaments bag and its relative documents are, not available." The charge-sheets were issued by the Vice-President Zonal Office.
3. The learned lower Court has held that grievance notice was within time, that order of dismissal was passed by an incompetent authority and that proper opportunity to defend himself was not afforded to the respondent. The grievance notice was not within time. It was signed on the last day of limitation i. e. 19th April, 1981. The dismissal letter was delivered to the respondent on 20th January, 1981 as mentioned in para. No, 6 of the grievance notice. Section 25-A (1) says that notice is to be served within three months. The word used is 'serve' and not 'send'. I the latter word had been used, the notice sent on the last day would have been within time. Since the requirement is that it should serve actually be served within three months, it was time-barred. It was not delivered by band but was sent by registered post. There is no presumption that reached the addressee on the same day. It was not proved by examining the postman that the notice was delivered on 19th April, 1981. Since the very grievance notice was time-barred, the grievance petition without the service of legal notice was incompetent. The learned lower Court has wrongly held that the case should have been adjourned for defence evidence. He admitted that it was written in the proceedings of enquiry that the respondent had said that he did not want to produce defence.
After the respondent said so, there was no occasion to adjourn the case for defence. So proper opportunity was given to the respondent to defend himself.
4. The finding of the learned lower Court that the charge-sheets were given by incompetent authority is also not correct. This is true that dismissal order was not passed by the Vice-President and that he only conveyed the order but since in the grievance petition no such objection was raised that the charge-sheets were given by an incompetent authority, the respondent did not lead any evidence on the point. If such an objection had been raised in the pleadings, the appellant would have shown that under the authority or permission of the competent authority the charge-sheets were delivered.
5. On merits the apology of the respondent was not acceptable that he being new man delivered Rs, 300,000 on the asking of the Manager to Ghulam Sarwar without receipt and cheque. He did not enter this amount of Rs, 3,00,000 received by him in the book and thus displayed his bad and criminal intention. However, so far as the sanctioning of gold loan is concerned, this was the function purely of the Manager and there is no evidence how the respondent collaborated and colluded with the Manager in this respect.
6. As upshot of the observations made above, I hold that the grievance notice being time barred, the grievance petition was incompetent. I, accordingly, accept the appeal and setting aside the impugned decision of the learned lower Court, dismiss the grievance petition of the respondent.