TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1984 (9) TMI 272
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....e Mills Account or by taking cash from the chest of the Retail Depot along with Shri R.S. Negi, Manager-cum-Cashier of Raymonds' Retail Show- room, 2397/1, Hardhian Singh Road, Karol Bagh, New Delhi. That you Shri Rajinder Kumar Kindra while acting as a salesman aided, abetted, connived and conspired with the Manager-cum-Cashier Shri R.S. Negi of the said show-room and issued various cheques in the amount of Rs. 15,027/75 from your cheque book with the ulterior motive and design to defraud the Company of the said amount by submitting these bogus cheques into the Mills' Account and thereby causing unlawful gain to yourself and causing unlawful loss to the Company in collusion with Manager-cum-Cashier Shri R.S. Negi. That you Shri Rajinder Kumar Kindra has willfuly/ negligently permitted the user of the cheques in order to defraud the company of the amount of Rs. 15,027/75 in conspiracy with Shri R.S. Negi and you have been habitually negligent and willfully disobedient in the performance of your duties as salesman." One Shri V.K. Soni was appointed as Enquiry Officer to enquire into the aforementioned charges. In the course of enquiry, the appellant denied the charges levelled....
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....is evidence. It was further contended that the conclusions reached by the enquiry officer and findings recorded by him are borne out by the evidence and permissible inferences drawn from the evidence and they are such that any reasonable person would reach on the evidence the conclusion of guilt of the appellant. It was submitted that the arbitrator cannot sit in appeal over the findings of the enquiry officer. It was further contended that at any rate there is satisfactory evidence to show that the appellant negligently kept his cheque book in relation to his private banking account in such a manner as to be accessible to any one to misuse the same and this was done intentionally, so as to facilitate the commission of fraud presumably by Manager-cum-Cashier Shri R.S. Negi. In the ultimate analyses this was the only misconduct attributed to the present appellant. The arbitrator held that none of the witnesses of the employer has stated that the appellant misappropriated any amount of the Company or he had manipulated false accounts or had submitted bogus cheques in the account of the employer or had taken away any amount from the chest of the retail depot or had abetted, aided, ....
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....l opportunity was given to the workman and no prejudice was caused to him by any act of the management, although he was given full opportunity to lead his evidence and to cross-examine the witnesses of the management and particularly there was no enmity between the work man and the enquiry officer and the dismissal as such was not wrongful. (c) That the workman is not entitled to any relief, and is not entitled to reinstatement with back wages and continuity of service since he has been gainfully employed with Shri Tara Chand at his coal depot ever since his dismissal. The reference by way of award is answered accordingly." The appellant filed a writ petition under Art. 226 in the High Court of Delhi questioning the correctness, validity and the legality of the award made by Shri Kakkar. A Division Bench of the High Court dismissed the matter in limine, observing that the matter depends upon assessment of evidence and the Court cannot reappraise the same under Art. 226 of the Constitution. Hence this appeal by special leave. Let it be made absolutely clear at the outset that the only misconduct imputed to the appellant was that he was negligent in keeping his cheque-book i....
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....with Shri R.S. Negi. Again it was conceded that there is absolutely not an iota of evidence which could indicate that the appellant issued any a cheques himself or that he aided or abetted someone to issue the r bogus cheques. These were the allegations in charges Nos. 1 and 2 and the finding by Mr. Kakkar that they are proved can be styled as perverse on the admission of the employer himself because not a single witness in the course of domestic enquiry so stated. Mr. Jain, learned counsel for the respondent could not point out one single sentence of evidence in support of these two charges. Mr. P.K. Jain urged that the third charge which was to the effect that the appellant permitted the use of the cheques from the cheque-book issued to him by the Bank in which he was maintaining his own private account to defraud the employer to the tune of Rs. 15,027.75 p. in conspiracy with Shri R.S. Negi and that he was negligent and was guilty of wilful disobedience ill performance of his duties as a salesman was substantiated. It is a composite charge. The first limb of the charge refers to negligence in handling his private cheque book so that in conspiracy with Shri R.S. Negi cheque fo....
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....is duties. There is not the remotest suggestion in the evidence to that effect. Not a single witness has spoken about any wilful disobedience in performance of duty. Some flamboyant charges appears to have been cooked up by the employer without any regard for truth or without any regard for responsibility ill making such heinous allegation and levelling serious accusation without an iota of evidence in support of it We repeatedly asked Mr. P.K. Jain, learned counsel for the employer to show from the evidence led before the inquiry officer which order of the employer was disobeyed much less unwilfully by the appellant, as also acts of omission and commission in performance of duty to spell out negligence. The only reply we received was that the appellant kept his cheque book unattended. Keeping one's own cheque book unattended is no part of performance of duties of the employee and there was no order by the employer how appellant should handle his private cheque book. Let is be made distinctly clear that this Court in this appeal is not re-appreciating evidence. Mr. G.C. Jain, the first Arbitrator who completed a major part of the enquiry in the reference made to him under sec. 1....
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....act on the conclusion recorded by Mr. G.C. Jain he should have made a consequential order of setting aside the order of dismissal and directing reinstatement with back wages but he unnecessarily procrastinated and then before he could attend to the remainder of the work, he was elevated to the bench of the Delhi High Court leaving the appellant to face the music of a fresh enquiry and a complete sommer sault by the new arbitrator. A fresh reference was made to Sh. N.L. Kakkar, Mr. P.K. Jain, learned counsel for the employer/contended that this Court is only concerned with the award of Mr. Kakkar and the findings recorded by Mr. G.C. Jain are not relevant. We have serious reservations about this submission, but it is not necessary in this case to decide that point. We would now confine ourselves to the award of Shri Kakkar. In Paragraph 1 to 5, the history of the dispute and the charges framed against the appellant have been set out by Mr. Kakkar. Paragraph 6 deals with what the enquiry officer did. Paragraph 7 reproduces the contentions on behalf of the appellant. Paragraph 8 summarises the contentions on behalf of the employer. Paragraphs 9, 10 and 11 deal with the manner in wh....
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....ned it does not constitute misconduct. The employer could not have framed such charges without any evidence in support of them yet Mr. Kakkar holds them proved. Therefore Mr. Kakkar accepted the findings of the enquiry officer which were per se perverse. Not only Mr. Kakkar did not apply his mind to the submission of the appellant that the findings were perverse but he merely recorded his ipse dixit without any manner analysing or examining or applying his mind to the evidence only to find out whether there was any evidence to substantiate the charge and whether any reasonable man would arrive at the conclusion which the enquiry officer had reached. The award of Mr. Kakkar, apart from the fact that it is based on no legal evidence suffers from the additional infirmity of total non-application of mind. Any finding of misconduct based on total absence of evidence must fail. Mr. Jain contended that once Mr. Kakkar came to the conclusion that the appellant was given full opportunity to participate in the domestic enquiry neither High Court under Art. 226 nor this Court under Art. 136 can sit in appeal over the findings of the enquiry officer and reappraise the evidence. We have not at ....
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....nd stands vitiated. The industrial tribunal or the arbitrator or a quasi-judicial authority can reject not only such findings but also the conclusion based on no legal evidence or if it is merely based on surmises and conjectures unrelated to evidence on the ground that they disclose total non- application of mind. Viewed from either angle, the conclusion of the enquiry officer as well as of the arbitrator Mr. Kakkar are wholly perverse and hence unsustainable. The High Court, in our opinion, was in clearly error in declining to examine the contention that the findings were perverse on the short, specious and wholly untenable ground that the matter depends on appraisal of evidence. Between appraisal of evidence and total lack of evidence there is an appreciable difference which could never be lost-sight of and the High Court ought not to have short circuited the writ petition. If there is absolutely no evidence in support or the only allegation of misconduct namely negligence in not keeping one's private cheque book in safe custody, the conclusion is not only not a plausible one but it is wholly perverse and we are in complete agreement with findings recorded Mr. G.C. Jain th....