# ANANDA BAZAR PATRIKA (P) LTD v. ITS WORKMEN

- **Citation:** [1964] 3 S.C.R. 601
- **Court:** Supreme Court of India
- **Decided:** 1964
- **Case number:** Civil Appeal No. 633 of 1962
- **Bench:** P. B. Gajendragadkar, K. N. Wanohoo, K. C. Das Gupta
- **Source:** https://unisonlegal.in/judgment/supreme-court-of-india/ananda-bazar-patrika-p-ltd-v-its-workmen-3009
- **Pages:** 15

## Headnote

biduatrial
Dispute-Discharge of workmen-Domestic
e1'quiry in accordance with the principle of natural justiceExtent <Jf jurisdiction of industrial tribunal-Industrial Disputes
Act, 1947 (14 of 1947), s. JO (1) (D).
The respondent was working as a Reporter of the Ananda
Bazar Patrika.
The Chief
Reporter of the
Ananda
Bazar Patrika proceeded on leave.
Before going on leave, he
appointed •M' to act as Chief Reporter temporarily during his
·absence.
The respondent was not satisfied with this arrange·
ment and so be began to ignore the assignments allotted to him
by the Acting Chief Reporter.
The Acting Chief Reporter
complained to the Managing Director that the respondent was
ignoring the assignments allotted to him on the basis of the
above-mentioned complaint an enquiry was held against the
respondent. It was held day to day and the respondent cross.
examined the witnesses at length. The enquiry officer did not
allow the Editor to be examined on behalf of the respondent on
the ground that he was not a material witness.
The Enquiry
Officer found that the charge had been proved against tho res·
pondent. The Management accepted the enquiry report and
discharged him fr0m the service.
·
The aforesaid dispute between the appellant and respon·
dent was referred to the Labour Court.
The Labour Court held that the domestic enquiry was
conducted not in accordance with the principles of natural
justice as the respondent was not allowed to examine a single
witness. The Labour Court directed the appellant to reinstate
the respondent.
Held that at the domestic enquiry it is competent to the
enquiry officer to refuse to examine a witness or to disa!Jow a
question if he honestly comes to the conclusion that either of
\hem are irrelevant for the purpose of enquiry,
1963
1969
Anand• B-ocar
P•lrik• (P) L1<1.
y,
WorJm1n
602
SUPREME COURT RBPOR TB [1964] VOL.
(2) that the enquiry officer cannot be said to have acted
mala fid• and contrary to the principles of natural j1Utiec in refu·
sing to examine the Editor as witness for the respondent or in
disallowing certain questions put by the respondent to the
witnesses on the @round that these were irrelevant for the purpose
of enquiry.
(3) that once it is found that the domestic enquiry is fair,
without malice and in accordance with the principles of natural
justice and the conclusions of the said enquiry are not perverse
then the Labour Court has no jurisdiction to consider the
merits of the dispute between the .parties, and to enquire whether the findings recorded by the domestic tribunal are right
or wrong.

## Text

'
3 S.C.R.
QOURT REPORTS
601
ANANDA BAZAR PATRIKA (P) LTD.
v.
ITS WORKMEN
(P. B. GAJENDRAGADKAR, K. N. WANOHOO,
and K. C. DAS GUPTA JJ.)
biduatrial
Dispute-Discharge of workmen-Domestic
e1'quiry in accordance with the principle of natural justiceExtent <Jf jurisdiction of industrial tribunal-Industrial Disputes
Act, 1947 (14 of 1947), s. JO (1) (D).
The respondent was working as a Reporter of the Ananda
Bazar Patrika.
The Chief
Reporter of the
Ananda
Bazar Patrika proceeded on leave.
Before going on leave, he
appointed •M' to act as Chief Reporter temporarily during his
·absence.
The respondent was not satisfied with this arrange·
ment and so be began to ignore the assignments allotted to him
by the Acting Chief Reporter.
The Acting Chief Reporter
complained to the Managing Director that the respondent was
ignoring the assignments allotted to him on the basis of the
above-mentioned complaint an enquiry was held against the
respondent. It was held day to day and the respondent cross.
examined the witnesses at length. The enquiry officer did not
allow the Editor to be examined on behalf of the respondent on
the ground that he was not a material witness.
The Enquiry
Officer found that the charge had been proved against tho res·
pondent. The Management accepted the enquiry report and
discharged him fr0m the service.
·
The aforesaid dispute between the appellant and respon·
dent was referred to the Labour Court.
The Labour Court held that the domestic enquiry was
conducted not in accordance with the principles of natural
justice as the respondent was not allowed to examine a single
witness. The Labour Court directed the appellant to reinstate
the respondent.
Held that at the domestic enquiry it is competent to the
enquiry officer to refuse to examine a witness or to disa!Jow a
question if he honestly comes to the conclusion that either of
\hem are irrelevant for the purpose of enquiry,
1963
1969
Anand• B-ocar
P•lrik• (P) L1<1.
y,
WorJm1n
602
SUPREME COURT RBPOR TB [1964] VOL.
(2) that the enquiry officer cannot be said to have acted
mala fid• and contrary to the principles of natural j1Utiec in refu·
sing to examine the Editor as witness for the respondent or in
disallowing certain questions put by the respondent to the
witnesses on the @round that these were irrelevant for the purpose
of enquiry.
(3) that once it is found that the domestic enquiry is fair,
without malice and in accordance with the principles of natural
justice and the conclusions of the said enquiry are not perverse
then the Labour Court has no jurisdiction to consider the
merits of the dispute between the .parties, and to enquire whether the findings recorded by the domestic tribunal are right
or wrong.
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal
No. 633 of 1962.
· Appeal by special leave from
the award
dated December 8, 1959, of the Second Lab1mr
Court, West Bengal, in Case No. VIII-C-226 of 1958.
A. V. Viswanatha Sastri and K. Baldev Meht,a,
for the appellant.
N. 0. Chatterjee, M. K. Ramamurthi, R. K.
Garg, 8. 0. Agarwala and D. P. Singh, for the
re11pondents.
1963. May 7.
The Judgment of the Court was
delivered by
G.AJENDRAGADKAR J.-This
appeal
arises
from an industrial dispute between the appellant, the ·
Ananda Bazar Patrika (P) Ltd., and the respondents,
its workmen. The appellant is a private limited.
company and carries on the business of printing and
publishing newspapers, namely, 'Ananda Bazar Patrika' which is a Bengali Dailv, 'Desh' which is a
Bengali Weekly, and 'Hindustan Standard' which is
an English daily newspaper. Mr. Pulakesh De Saro
kar was appointed by the management of the appellant as Journalist ill March, 1940, and has been
ii S.C.R.
SUPRENIE COURT REPORTS
603
working with the · appellant since then until he was
discharged from service by the appellant on May 15,
1958. The Union of the appellant's employees took
up this discharge and raised an industrial dispute
about it. In was urged by the Union that the dis·
charge of Mr. Sarkar's services was illegal and that
he was entitled to reinstatement and/or compensation. This dispute was referred by the Government
of West Bengal for adjudication to the Second Labour
Court on
September 25,
1958. By
its award
pronounced on
December 8, 1959, the Labour
Court has directed the appellant to reinstate Mr.
Sarkar and pay him his emoluments for the period
of his forced unemployment. It appears that on
January 27, 1959, the appellant had paid
some
moneys to Mr. Sarkar, and so, the award directs that
in paying emoluments to Mr. Sarkar under the provisions of the award, adjustments should be made
in respect of the amounts already paid by the appellant to him. It is against this award that the appellant has come to this Court by special leave.
The facts leading to the present industrial dis·
pute between the parties are not many and can be
very briefly stated at the outset. It appears that on
December 16, 1957, Mr. Shibdas
Bhattacharjee
who was the Chief Reporter of the Ananda Bazar
Patrika, proceeded on leave. Before going on leave,
Mr.
Bhattacharjee
appointed
Mr.
Madhusudan Chakravorty to work as Chief Reporter tempo-
. rarily during his absence.
Accordingly, he wrote a
letter to that effect and sent its copies to the Editor
of the Ananda Bazar Patrika, to the News Editor of
the said Paper, to the Chief Accountant and to the
Reporting Department. The letter was addressed
to the Managing Director of the Ananda Bazar
Patrika, and a copy of it was hung on the Notice
Board of the. Reporting Section of the Ananda Bazar
·
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P.trih <P) ltd.
v.
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Jl{jj
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Patrika CP) Ltd.
••
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604
SUPREME COURT REPORTS (1964) VOL.
Mr. Sarkar who was working as one of the
Reporters took exception to this arrangement and
interviewed the Managing Director to request him to
cancel the said arrangement. The Managing Director told him that the letter had been written by Mr.
Bhattacharjee at the instance of the Accounts Department, because the Accounts Department wanted that
if any arrangement was made during leave vacancy,
it should be evidenced by a document in order to
enable the Accounts Department to deal with the
acting person so far as financial transactions were
concerned. Mr. Sarkar was not satisfied with the
interview and so, he proceeded to write a letter to
the Managing Director and hung up a copy of this
letter on the Notice Board. In this letter he took
strong exception to the arrangement made by Mr.
Bhattacharjee and expressed his indignation against
the letter which Mr. Bhattacharjee had written to
evidence the said arrangement. "I find no reason",
said Mr. Sarkar, in that letter, "to honour that spu·
rious letter and so, I would be standing on my own
right and merit, decide my assignments myself and
act accordingly till the Chief Reporter resumes his
office." This letter was written on December 20,
1957. Copy of this Jetter was sent by Mr. Sarkar
to the Editor, to the News Editor and to the Repor·
ting Department.
True to the threat held out by him in his letter,
Mr. Sarkar appeared to ignore the assignments allotted to him by the Acting Chief Reporter, Mr. Chak·
ravorty. When this matter was brought to the notice
of the Managing Director, he wrote a letter
to. Mr. Sarkar on
December 31, 1957, calling
upon him to
how cause
why
action . should
not
be
taken · against . him
for
his
gross
misconduct and subversive conduct.
Thereupon,
Mr.
Sarkar, told
the
Managing
Director
that he was quite willing to remove his letter from
the Notice Boarcj and he gave him an account of
3 s.c.R.
SUPRBME COURT RBPORTS
605
the work which he had assigned to himself between
December 16 to December 31, 1957.
Meanwhile the Acting Chief Reporter complained to the Managing Director that Mr. Sarkar
was ignoring the assignments allotted to him. Ultimately. the Managing Director wrote to Mr. Sarkar
on January 11, 1958, that in view of the defiant
attitude · adopted by him, the Managing Director
was compelled to call upoq Mr. Sarkar to show cause
_ why he should not be dismissed for his insubordina·
tion. On January 12, 1958, Mr. Sarkar gave an
elaborate explanation of his conduct. Since this
explanation was not treated by the Managing Direc·
tor as satisfactory, he informed Mr. Sarkar by his
letter of January 29, 1958, that an enquiry
would
be held against him and that he should appear be·
fore Mr. S. K. Basu, Editor of the Hindustan Stand·
ard, in his room on February 1, 1958 at l P.M.
Mr. Basu then held an enquiry into the charges
already supplied to Mr. Sarkar. At this enquiry,
Mr. Sarkar elaborately cross-examined the witnesses
who gave evidence
against him and gave his own
evidence. The principal question which was referred to the enquiry
officer was whether Mr. Sarkar
had flouted the lawful orders given to him by the
Acting Chief Reporter? The enquiry officer considered the evidence, and came to the conclusion that
Mr. Sarkar was guilty of deliberate disobedience of
the lawful orders of the Acting Chief Reporter who
had been properly appointed. This report was made
on April 14, 1958.
The management of the appellant then considered the report, examined the evidence led at the
enquiry, and came to the conclusion that Mr. Sarkar
was guilty of gross misconduct and deserved to be
dismissed, but in view of the fact that he had served
the Paper for a long period, the management decided to discharge him from service. Accordingly, on
•
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v.
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1963
Annnda Ha<.or
Palrika r P) ltd.
••
Workm111
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SUPREME COOR t REPORTS [1964] Ydt.;
May 15, 1958, the
management wrote a letter
to Mr. Sarkar that ·his services had been terminated
with effect from
May 16, 1958.
Mr. Sarkar
was given one month's pay in lieu of notice, and. he
was advised to collect his dues, including wages earned by him, gratuity and one month's pay in lieu
of notice from the cash office on May 19, 1958, at
11 A.M. The letter also told Mr. Sarkar that the
Provident Fund authorities had been advised regar·
ding the termination of his service and that, in due
course, the Provident Fund amount due to him
would be paid. Broadly stated, these are the facts
which give rise to the present dispute between the
appellant and the Union which took up Mr. Sarkar's
case.
The extent of the jurisdiction which a Labour
Court or an industrial Tribunal can exercise in dealing with such disputes is well-settled. If the termination of an industrial employee's services has
been proceeded by a proper domestic enquiry which
has been held in accordance with the rules of . natural justice and the conclusions reached at the said
enquiry are not perverse the Tribunal is not entitled
to consider the propriety or the correctness of the said
conclusions. If, . on the other hand, in terminating
the services of the employee, the management has
acted maliciously or vindictively or has been actuated
by a desire to punish the employee for his trade
union activities, the Tribunal would be entitled to
give adequate protection to the employee by ordering
his reinstatement, or directing in his favour the
payment of compensation; but if the enquiry has
been proper and the conduct of the management
in dismissing the employee is not mflla fide, then the
Tribunal cannot interfere with the conclusions of the
enquiry officer, or with the orders passed by the management after accepting the said conclusions.
In the present case, the Labour Court appears
to have taken the view that the enquiry was not fair
3 S.C.R.
SUPRENIE COURT REPORTS
601
and bad not been conducted in accordance with the
rules of natural justice. Having reached this con·
clusion, the Tribunal proceeded to consider the
merits of the
controversy between the parties and
has recorded its findings after appreciating the evi·
dence led before it by the respective parties in support
of their contentions. It has held that Mr. Sarkar was
not justified in hanging up his. letter on the Notice
Board. but it took the view that the management
should not have taken action against him in view of
the fact that Mr. Sarkar had removed the letter as
soon as he learnt that the management took exception to his conduct. According to the Labour Court,
Mr. Bhattacharjee was not authorised to appoint
Mr. Chakravorty as the Acting Chief Reporter during
his period of absence on leave, and so, it thought
that Mr. Chakravony was not clothed with lawful
authority to allot assignments to Mr. Sarkar during
Mr. Bhattacharjee's absence. In regard to the question that Mr. Sarkar had decided his own assignments, the Labour Court was not satisfied with the
whole of the story deposed to by the appellant's
witnesses and in any event, it held that the explanation given by Mr. Sarkar in that behalf was not
unreasonable. It is on these findings that the order
of reinstatement has been passed by the Labour Court
in favour of Mr. Sarkar.
The first question which falls for our decision
is whether the Labour Court was right in holding
that the enquiry conducted by Mr. Basu was not a
fair enquiry. In support of this conclusion, the
Labour Court has observed that Mr. Basu had not allowed Mr. Sarkar "to examine a single witness on
his behalf", and had
some very relevant
questions put by Mr. Sarkar iF1 cross-examination of
the appellant's witnesses. It has also stated that the
punishment meted out to Mr. Sarkar is far too severe
and it thought that it was necessary for the appellant
to consult the Editor before deciding upon tac
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JMado. B.z11r
P .... (P) Lt,,
••
W•hu11
J.
'/963
An,,;,. IJaz•r
Potriko (P) Ltd,
'
v.
W1rtm1n
608
SUPREME COURT REPORTS (1964) VOL.
punishment which should be imposed on Mr. Sarkar.
These facts, according to the Labour Court, betrayed
mala fides of the appellant in this case, and so, it was
not prepared to accept the findings arrived at the
domestic enquiry.
Taking the first point about the failure of
Mr. Basu to allow Mr. Sarkar to examine even a
single witness on his behalf, it is
that the
Labour Court should have made an observation
which gives an impression that Mr. Sarkar wanted
to examine a large number of witnesses of whom not
even.a single witness was allowed to be examined.
The observation made by the Labour Court is mis·
leading. It is true that at one stage Mr. Sarkar
stated that he had filed a list of witnesses, but that
list is not on the record before us. What is on the
record before us, however, unambiguously shows th\lt
Mr. Sarkar wanted to examine only one witness and
that is the Editor of the Ananda Bazar Patrika. In
any case, there can be no doubt that he pressed his
claim for examining only one witness.
This is un·
ambiguously proved by the record kept by Mr.
Basu during the course. of the domestic enquiry and
by the statement made by Mr. Sarkar before the
Labour Court itself.
"The only witness", said Mr.
Sarkar before. the Labour Court. "l cited in the
domestic enquiry was not allowed by the enquiry
officer." Therefore, it is unreasonable to make a
sweeping statement that Mr. Sarkar was not allowed
to examine a single witness.
The true position is
that only one witness was intended to .be examined
by Mr. Sarkar and Mr. Basu did not allow that. It
appears from the proceedings of the domestic enquiry
that Mr. Basu took the view that on the narrow
question which he had been called upcin to consider
• the Editor would have been able to give no material
assistance, and so, he th0ught that the. request of
Mr. Sarkar to examine him could not be granted.
There can be no doubt that at the domestic enquiry
3 S.C.R.
SUPREME COURT REPORTS
609
it is competent to the enquiry officer to refuse to
examine a witness if he bona fide comes to the conclusion that the said witness would be irrelevant
or immaterial. If the refusal to examine such a
witness, or to allow other evidence to be led appears
to be the result of the de&ire on the part ofthe
enquiry officer to deprive the person charged or an
opportunity to establish his innocence, that of course,
would be a very serious matter. But in the present
case, one has merely to look at the lengthy record o(
the enquiry to be satisfied that Mr. Basu conducted
the enquiry elaborately and allowed Mr. Sarkar
fullest latitude to cross-examine the management'•
witnesses; the enquiry was conducted from day to day
and the record shows how elaborately Mr. Sarkar has
utilised his right of cross-examination in dealing with
the management's witnesses. Therefore, we do not
think that in refu,ing Mr. Sarkar's request to examine the Editor,. the enquiry officer can be said to
have acted capriciously or mala
He seems to
have thought honestly that the said witness would
not be material or relevant. That being so, we do
not think that this circumstance can render the
enquiry unfair.
The other criticism made by the Labour Court
against the said enquirv is that some very relevant
questions had been disallowed by Mr. Basil. In our
opinion, this
criticism is wholly misconceived.
We have looked at the proceedings of the enquiry
and we are satisfied that most of the questions which
were di•allowed were properly disallowed ; in fact
Mr. Chatterjee has not been able to show how the
criticism 111ade bv the Labour Coort in this part or
its award is justified. Some of the questions put by
Mr. Sarkar to the
were not only irrelevant,
but wholly unfair, and so, it was the duty of Mr.
Basu to disallow those questions. Besides, in dealing with this aspect of the matter, the Labour Court
should not have overlooked the fact that relevance
., ... u8l•lrik4 (I') Lttl.
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IYor.imca
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SUPREME COURT REPORTS [11164] VOL.
of questions had to be decided by Mr. Basu who
was conducting the enquiry; and even if the Lnbour
Court took the view that some questions which were
disallowed were relevant, that would not necessarily
make the enquiry unfair or improper unless of course,
in disallowing the relevant questions,
it can be
shown that Mr. Basu was acting mala fide.
Therefore, this criticism also is of no avail.
Then, the Labour Court has observed that it
was the duty of the Management to have consulted
the Editor before . deciding upon the punishment to
be meted out to Mr. Sarkar. We are surprised that
the Labour Court should have treated this as a valid
reason for impeaching the fairness of the enquiry.
We do not understand how it was necessary or oblig<"tory for the management to consult. the Editor
before taking any action against Mr. Sarkar. Besides,
it is significant that though the management accepted
the finding of Mr. Basu that Mr. Sarkar was guilty of
gross misconduct, it has purported to act fairly by
Mr. Sarkar inasmuch as it took into account his long
association with the paper, and so, imtead of dismissing him, it merely discharged him from service.
Therefore, we have no doubt that the ground given
by the Labour Court that the failure to consult the
Editor made the conduct of the management malafide, is wholly unsustainable.
It docs appear that an argument was urged
before the Labour Court that the enquiry officer being
an outsider, the enquiry was void ab ini tio. This
objection had been over-ruled by the Labour Court
and, in our opinion, the Labour Court was right.
It also appears that it was urged before the Labour
Court by the respondents that Mr. Basu bore malice
to Mr. Sarkar because of an incident which had taken
place in regard to the management of the Provident
Fund of the employees of the Ananda Bazar Patrika.
It does appear that Mr. Basu and the Managing Director of the Ananda Bazar Patrika were the Trustees of
3 S.C.R. SUPREME COURT REPORTS
611
the said Fund along with 3 other Trustees and the
conduct of the Trustees in allowing a fairly large
amount of this Trust Fund as a loan to the management was criticised by the members of the Fund, and
in consequence of the agitation carried on in that
behalf, Mr. Basu who was originally the Trustee of
the Fund was not elected at the next elections.
This
dispute, however, was amicably settled and the
parties agreed to terms of settlement on March 7 /9,
1957. It was urged by
Mr. Sarkar that since
he had taken a leading part in the agitation
against the conduct of the Trustees in making a loan
from the Provident Fund to the management, Mr.
Basu and the Managing Director were hostile to him.
Even this argument has not been accepted by the
Labour Court on the ground that Mr. Sarkar had
raised no contention of this kind at the time of the
enquiry. Apart from this technical aspect, however,
we are satisfied that there is no evidence to show
that Mr.Basu or the Managing Director of the Ananda
Bazar Patrika bore any ill-will to Mr. Sarkar. In
fact, the evidence indicates that Mr. Sarkar is conveniently over-rating the part played by him in the
agitation in regard to the said impugned transaction
of loan, Therefore, the Labour Court was, in our
opinion, right in rejecting this contention.
The position, thus is that the conclusion of the
Labour Court that the enquiry was not fair and that
the appellant has acted mala fid,e in discharging
Mr. Sarkar cannot be sustained. We have repeatedly
pointed out that though industrial adjudication can
and must protect ind·1strial employees from victimisation, a finding as to mala jide8 or victimisation
should be drawn only where evidence has been led to
justifiy it; such a finding should not be made either
in a causal manner or light-heartedly. In our
opinion, no material was produced before
the
Labour Court in the present proceedings to justify
its finding either that the
11 nquiry was unfair, or
196J
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P•ttit• ( P) '"·
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612 SUPREME COURT REPORTS (1964) VOL.
that the conduct of the 1 appellant in discharging
Mr. Sarkar was mala fide •
As soon as we reach this con cl us ion, it follows
that the Labour Court had no jurisdiction to consider
the merits of the dispute between the parties, and
to enquire whether the findings recorded by the
domestic tribunal were right or not. We have,
however, heard Mr. Chatterjee at length on the
question as to whether Mr. Bhattacharjee had
authority to appoint Mr. Chakravorty as an Acting
Chief Reporter during his absence on leave, because
it appeared to us that if evidence clearly showed
that the appointment made by Mr. Bhattacharjee
was contrary to the rules prevailing in the institution
or was inconsistent with the practice, it may perhaps
justify his grievance that Mr. Basu
should have
allowed the Editor to be examined on the assumption that the Editor could
have spoken to the
prevailing rules or practice in that behalf. Mr.
Sarkar'• case i1 that the Editor is in charge of the
whOle of the Reporting Department and in case the
Chief Reporter goes on leave, it is for the Editor
to make an appointment of the Acting
Chief
Repoter. It is remarkable that though Mr. Sarkar
has raised this point from the start, he has not stated
on oath anything in support of the practice on which
he relies.
Mr. Chatterjee has referred m to several
statements in his evidence, but he fairly conceded
that Mr. Sarkar has now-here made a categorical
statement on oath that during the long period that
he had been working with this Paper, practice ever
was that when the Chief Reporter went on leave,
the Editor appointed an Acting Chief Reporter in
the leave vacancy. The failure of Mr. Sarkar to
make such a categorical statement or to refer to any
incident in support of his plea is not without
significance.
But apart from it, there is abundant evidence
adduced before the Labour Court which shows that
3 S.C.R.
SUPREME COURT REPORTS
613
Mr. Sarkar's contention is not well·founded. We
have already noticed that Mr.
Sarkar saw the
Managing Director and in the letter he had pasted
on the
notice board on
December 20, 1957,
Mr. Sarkar had stated clearly that the Managing
Director had told him that the only thing of which
the Managing Director was
aware
was
"the
Accounts Department's insistance on authorising
somebody by the Chief Reporter before he went on
leave through whom financial transaction, if any,
would take place." This statement clearly 1hows
that the Managing Director told Mr. Sarkar that
the Accounts Department wanted something in
writing by the Chief Reporter whenever he went on
leave to show who would be acting as the Acting
Chief Reporter during his absence. This statement
is contained in Mr. Sarkar'• letter and embodies
what he was told by the Managing Director himselr.
The authorisation had, therefore, to be by the Chief
Reporter and not by the Editor according to this
statement.
Then we have a letter from Mr. Chakravorty
to the Director's Department written on January
3, 1958. This
letter shows
that on
several
occasions when the Chief Reporter had gone on
leave, Mr. Chakravorty had been assigned the work
of the Chief Reporter. In that capacity, he had
managed the Department, allotted assignments to
the other Reporters and functioned
as an Acting
Chief Reporter. Mr. A. K. Sarkar who is
the
Managing Director of the Ananda Bazar Patrika
has stated on oath that the usual practice in the
Patrika is that when the Chief Reporter or any
Head of any Section remains absent, he nominates
his successor during his absenc/e.
There had been
some controversy about the letter written by Mr.
Bhattacharjee nominating Mr. Chakravorty as an
Acting Chief Reporter, and it was fairly conceded
, by Mr. A. K. Sarkar that this letter •was written
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614 SUPREME COURT REPORTS (1964] VOL.
because the Accounts Department" insisted on some
writing to show the appointment of an Acting Chief
Reporter. Formerly, the Chief Reporter used to
make verbal arrangemeuts
for work
during his
absence.
The Acting Chief Reporter has authority
to take cash from the Accounts Department to pay
to the Reporters whenever
necessary. Therefore,
the evidence of Mr. A. K. Sarkar establishes the
appellant's case that Mr. Bhattacharjee was justified
in making the appointment of Mr. Chakravorty as
Acting Chief Reporter in his absence.
The evidence
given by two Re.11orters of the Ananda Bazar Patrika
Mr. G.K. Ghosh and Mr. A. Chowdhary is to the
same effect. Thus, apart from
the fact that Mr.
Sarkar has not taken the oath in support of his
plea, the evidence led by the appellant clearly shows
that all that Mr. Bhattcharjee did on December
16, 1957 was in accordance with the prevailing
practice in the institution.
Indeed, it sounds common-sense that if the
Chief Reporter goes on leave, should make some
arrangement to enable some other reporter to act in
his place during his absence and should intimate
accordingly to the other heads.of departments and to
the
Managing
Director. It is
possible
that
other institutions may have other rules, or may
adopt another
kind of
practice, but on
the
evidence, adduced in this case, it is impossible to
s11stain Mr. Sarkar's plea that Mr. Bhattacharjee
acted outside his authority and he was, therefore,
justified in adopting the militant attitude which
was disclosed by his
letter of
December 20,
1957 which was pasted by him on the notice board.
It is hardly necessary to point out that even if
Mr. Sarkar had a grievance in the matter of the
appointment of Mr. Chakravorty, he should not have
adopted the extremely militant attitude by announcing that he would assign to himself his duties and
would take' no orders
from
Mr. Chakravory.t
3 S.C.R.
SUPREME COURT REPORTS
615
Therefore, we do not think that even on the merits,
Mr. Chatterjee is right in contending
that the
refusal of Mr. Basu to examine the Editor of the
Paper was unjustified, much less can it be said to
be perverse or malicious so as to
sustain the
contention that the enquiry held by the said officer
without examining the Editor is unfair and baa
contravened the rules of n<icural iustice.
Mr. Chatterjee no doubt urged before us the
fact that Mr. Sarkar has long and meritorious service
to his credit in this institution, and he told us that
he had taken part in the national movement and
had adopted the career of journalism out of patriotic and national feelings.
He, therefore, appealed
to us to consider whether the appellant should be
asked to reinstate him in its employment. When
this aspect of the matter was put to Mr. Sastri who
appeared for the appellant, Mr. Sastri told us after
consulting his client that having regard to the nature
of the misconduct which has been held proved
against Mr. Sarkar, the appellant was not inclined
to take him back.
In the result, the appeal succeeds and the order
passed by the Labour Court is set aside. There
would be no order as to costs.
Appeal allowed.
1963
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