TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1969 (9) TMI 108
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.... he filled it and signed the same on 21 July 1966. Presumably thinking that this was sufficient, the company did not issue a formal letter of appointment. On 2 April 1967 the respondent wrote to the company demanding a letter of appointment. In its reply dated 17 April 1967, Ex. M. 5, the company informed the respondent that his appointment was as a probationer lor one year with effect from 18 July 1966. In the meantime, the respondent had approached the Labour Commissioner with a request that the management should be directed to issue, as required by the Delhi Shops and Eatablishment Act, 1954, and the rules thereunder, the said letter of appointment. On being so required, the company issued on 26 Jane 1967 a letter of appointment, Ex. W.4....
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....y have provided that all appointments must, in the first instance, be on probation, there was nothing to prevent the company from making permanent appointment, and that in any event he was never shown those staff rules, nor informed that he was being appointed AS a probationer subject to those staff rules. According to him, the company's claim that he was appointed as a probationer was not true and the company's stand to that affect was only an afterthought to justify termination of his services. As against the company's case that this was, in any event, a case of termination of service simpliciter, his case was that the order terminating his services was in truth a punitive order dismissing him and was not in bona fide exercise of the comp....
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....From this evidence the tribunal found that the management had made the respondent do work in respect of concerns other than the company, that his demand for extra payment must have annoyed the management, and that that coupled with the resentment against his having approached the authorities in the matter of the letter of appointment made them terminate his services. The company obtained special leave from this Court and filed this appeal against the said order of the tribunal. 5. Counsel for the company at first raised several contentions against the tribunal's conclusions, but after some arguments gave up all of them except the contention that in the circumstances of the case the tribunal ought not to have directed the respondent's rei....
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....was wrongful an no enquiry giving her the opportunity of being heard wan hold. But, considering her employment as the secretary, the tribunal did not order reinstatement and instead directed the company to pay compensation equivalent to two years' salary. On a contention that the compensation was exorbitant, this Court, on appeal, reduced the amount of compensation to one year's salary on the ground that there were no special circumstances to warrant the award of two years' salary as compensation. Explaining the case of Assam Oil Company 1960-I L L. J. 687 (vide supra), where the Court had awarded compensation of Rs. 12,500, which was equivalent to two years' salary, the Court observed at p. 401 as follows: ...Th....
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.... as the disciplinary enquiry was not held properly and considered compensation equivalent to 71/2 months' salary sufficient. These decisions clearly show that though industrial adjudication may not regard a wrongful dismissal as amounting to termination of service resulting only in a right to damages as under the law of master and servant and would ordinarily order reinstatement, it can refuse to order such reinstatement where such a course, in the circumstances of the case, la not fair or proper. The tribunal has to examine, therefore, the circumstances of each case to see whether reinstatement of the dismissed employee la not inexpedient or improper. 7. In the present case, we are of the view that reinstatement directed by the tribunal....
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....marked, the respondent did so in order to preserve evidence that he was made to take down letters relating to concerns other than the appellant-company. Whether in terms of his employment as a stenographer the regional manager could take such work or not is a matter in which we need not go, but he did admittedly retain with Mm copies of as many as 32 such Communications which he exhibited as Exs. W. 10 to W. 42. These copies were clearly the property of the company which the respondent in no event could retain in his possession without the consent of his employers. If the regional manager were to entertain a feeling that, if reinstated, the respondent would in future also retain with him copies of documents of a confidential nature whenever....