The challenge in the writ petition is against Ext.P1 award of the 1st respondent. The issue referred to the 1st respondent for adjudication was as follows:-
“Whether the action of the management of State Bank of Travancore in relation to their Haripad Branch in terminating the services of Sri.K.Anandan, Peon with effect from 28.11.1998 is justifiable? If not, to what relief the workman is entitled to?”
2. The claim of the workman (the 2nd respondent herein) before the 1st respondent Tribunal was that he was employed as a Peon in the Haripad Branch of the Bank from 1983 onwards and he continued to be employed therein till 28.11.1998. According to him, despite the fact that there was no appointment order issued to him, he was all along working as a Peon in the said Branch of the Bank. It was his case that while he had made several requests to the management to regularise his service, no action was taken by the management towards that end. When eventually the management notified 151 vacancies of Peons in the newspapers and invited application from interested candidates in October, 1992, the 2nd respondent approached the management yet again with a request for regularisation which also was not acceded to. It is pointed out that his service was terminated with effect from 28.11.1998 and this, in effect, was a retrenchment insofar as it was in violation of Section 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act.
3. The case of the workman was contested by the Bank, the petitioner herein, which took the stand that it had never employed the 2nd respondent as Peon, either on temporary basis, or on casual basis continuously from 1983, as alleged by the 2nd respondent. It was contended that insofar as he was never appointed as a Peon in the services of the Bank, there was no question of terminating his service much less a termination that amounted to a retrenchment for the purposes of the Industrial Disputes Act.
4. The evidence before the Tribunal comprised of both oral and documentary evidence with the workman deposing in chief examination through an affidavit prepared on the same lines as the claim statement. The workman also relied upon a statement filed by the management in the course of conciliation proceedings initiated by the Assistant Labour Commissioner Central, Trivandrum wherein the management had taken the stand that it had engaged the 2nd respondent intermittently and on a casual basis for rendering certain services. The 2nd respondent workman also relied on the failure report submitted by the Conciliation Officer to the Government wherein the stand taken by the management during conciliation proceedings is set out in detail. The evidence of the management, on the other hand, was through oral testimonies of the Branch Manager of the Haripad Branch and the Assistant General Manager of the Bank, who was earlier the Branch Manager of the Haripad Branch. The management also relied on copies of the ledger sheets of the Savings Bank Account, pertaining to the respondent workman with the petitioner Bank for the period from 1987 to 1997.
5. The findings of the 1st respondent Tribunal on the issues of (i) Whether the 2nd respondent workman had in fact been engaged by the petitioner Bank, and (ii) Whether the termination of services of the 2nd respondent amounted to a retrenchment for the purposes of Section 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act, are to be found in paragraphs 7 and 8 of Ext.P1 award. Briefly stated, the 1st respondent Tribunal has relied upon the entries in the ledger produced by the management, which show the deposit, in the account of the workman, of fixed amounts on a regular basis, to infer there from that the said amounts were in fact remittances made by the petitioner Bank into the account of the 2nd respondent workman by way of remuneration. The findings of the 1st respondent Tribunal do not, however, indicate the basis for drawing such an inference. Further, basing purely on the entries in the ledger which show that amounts were regularly remitted into the Savings Account of the workman and that there were regular withdrawals of the said amounts by the worker in question, the 1st respondent Tribunal infers that the workman was engaged continuously for doing some work in the Branch of the Bank for a certain period of time. The Tribunal does concede however, that in the absence of any vouchers it is impossible to arrive at a definite conclusion on the exact nature of the transaction between the management and workman, but immediately thereafter it notes the regularity in the remittances made into the accounts and withdrawals made there from, and proceeds to hold that the only conclusion possible was that the amounts remitted were, in all probability, the remuneration that the workman was getting from the Bank and that the workman was being paid continuously for the services rendered by him. It is based on the above finding that, the Tribunal then proceeds to hold that the workman was working almost continuously from 1993 to 1998 receiving remuneration and consequently that it was possible that he had completed 240 days of services by the date on which his services were eventually terminated. The Tribunal also finds that insofar as the management could not explain the regular money transactions made by the workman for a long time, there was a definite employer employee relationship between the 2nd respondent worker and the petitioner Bank and consequently that the workman was entitled to the protection envisaged under Section 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act. The termination of the services of the workman was therefore declared as violative of the provisions under Section 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act, and the 2nd respondent workman was deemed to be in employment till his services were validly terminated by the management.
6. I have heard Sri.P.Ramakrishnan, counsel for the petitioner Bank and also Sri.Rojo Joseph Thuruthipara, appearing on behalf of the 2nd respondent workman.
7. On a consideration of the award passed by the 1st respondent Tribunal I am of the view that the findings of the 1st respondent Tribunal on the issue referred to it are not supported by any evidence on record. The 1st respondent Tribunal appears to have drawn conclusions based on surmises and conjectures. It is trite that in exercise of the supervisory jurisdiction of this Court under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, this Court would not normally interfere with an award passed by an Industrial Tribunal, save in exceptional situations where the industrial award is found to be perverse, either on account of entering a finding not supported by any evidence on record or on entering a finding that is vitiated by an error of law apparent on the face of the record. In the instant case, I feel that Ext.P1 award of the Industrial Tribunal is one that is perverse in the sense mentioned above. I therefore quash Ext.P1 award.
8. The learned counsel for the respondent workman would contend that the 1st respondent Tribunal did not consider various documents that could have brought out the true factual situation and hence it would be in the interests of justice to remand the matter to the Tribunal for a fresh adjudication. I am not inclined to accede to this request of the learned counsel. While the workman did not pursue his request for production of additional documents before the Tribunal, remanding the matter to the Industrial Tribunal for fresh adjudication after calling for those documents at this stage would in my opinion, be an exercise in futility considering the fact that the stand taken by the petitioner Bank even in 2004, when the proceedings was before the Industrial Tribunal, was that most of those documents were not available with the Bank. I make it clear however that if any payment has been made to the 2nd respondent workman during the pendency of this writ petition, under Section 17-B of the Industrial Disputes Act, those amounts shall not be recovered by the petitioner Bank.
With these directions the writ petition is allowed by quashing Ext.P1 award of the Industrial Tribunal. No costs.
mns/ A.K.JAYASANKARAN NAMBIAR JUDGE