' This is an appeal against the decision, dated 7-9-1977 of Punjab Labour Court No.3, Ferozewala.
2. Khurshid Ahmad, appellant was employed on 6-12-1961. He was promoted as Senior Clerk in the year 1965. A charge-sheet Exh. Which was received by him on 18-12-1973, was issued to him as under:- "That during the month of 4/72 the consumer against Account No.KGL-18 (Sardar Mehboob Hussain, Tubewell Connection, Chuharkana) was issued a bill for Rs.4,542.07 (including previous balance of Rs.4,461.70). After issue of the bill, you afforded a bogus credit of Rs.3,999 to the consumer by way of making bogus entry in the Sundry Charges and Allowances Register and then posted the same in Co1.17 (Allowances) of the consumer's ledger of 1971-72. You unauthorisedly scored out the entry of Rs.4,542.07 in Co1.19 of the consumer's ledger and substituted it by a forged entry of Rs.542.07. Later on in order to conceal your mischief you torn out the relevant portion of consumer's ledger and also removed and misplaced pages Nos. 83 and 84 of Sundry Charges and Allowances Register."
3. The appellant submitted his reply Exh.R.2, dated 29-1-1974 denying the charges. His reply was found unsatisfactory and so an enquiry was held. He participated in the enquiry and also produced his defence. The Enquiry Officer came to the conclusion that though the entries mentioned above were made independently of him, yet he was bound to ensure that the refund had been duly proved by the Revenue Officer by referring to Exh.P.E, which was maintained by him and from which he prepared monthly abstracts, therefore, he could not have possibly overlooked the torn entry in the Co1.17 of Exh.P.D. Or the due missing page of Exh. P.E. His failure to do so showed that he was either negligent or that he himself was responsible for this mischief. As a result of the Enquiry Report, vide order, dated 20-7-1976, the appellant was demoted from the post of Senior Clerk to that of Junior Clerk for a period of five years.
4. The appellant challenged the order of his demotion by way of a petition under section 25-A of Industrial Relations Ordinance, 1969 before the Labour Court. The respondent, besides contesting the petition on merits before the Labour Court, raised two technical objections namely, that no grievance notice was served before the filing of the petition and that the appellant was not a workman. The Labour Court overruled the aforementioned technical objections, but on merits dismissed the petition on the ground that the Labour Court could not sit as a Court of appeal on the decision taken by the Enquiry Officer.
5. Aggrieved by the above decision, Khurshid Ahmad, appellant has preferred this appeal.
6. In the appeal the technical objections raised before the Labour Court were not reiterated by the respondent. The appeal was contested on merits only.
7. On going through the enquiry report I find that no evidence was produced to show that it was the appellant, who had made the bogus entries in the Registers. The only evidence there was that all the registers were kept in his custody. In view of the above it cannot be said that he was responsible of making bogus entries. Thus this is a case of no evidence at all and as such the finding of the Enquiry Officer was perverse and the order of demotion based on the verdict of the Enquiry Officer was invalid.
8. I, accordingly, accept the appeal, set aside the decision of the Labour Court and direct that the appellant be re-promoted to the post from which he was demoted and should be given all the back benefits due to him.