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PETITIONER: THE CALCUTTA JUTE MFG. CO. LTD.

       Vs.

RESPONDENT: CALCUTTA JUTE MFG. WORKERS’ UNION

DATE OF JUDGMENT: 16/11/1961

BENCH: SARKAR, A.K. BENCH: SARKAR, A.K. GAJENDRAGADKAR, P.B. WANCHOO, K.N.

CITATION:  1966 AIR 1731            1962 SCR  Supl. (1) 483

ACT:      Industrial  Dispute-Charge  of  defiance  and insubordination-Authority  if  must  be  a  direct superior-Enquiry-Incidental  matter  if  could  be considered-Standing Order 14 (c) (i).

HEADNOTE:      J, a sardar of the Batching Department of the appellant company,  brought to  the notice of G, a supervisor of  the department,  that one  R of the Spinning Department  was throwing away as unusable some workable  roves.  G  on  finding  the  report correct, with  a view  to make a complaint against R’s work  to the  superior authority  asked  J  to collect the  roves thrown away. R tried to prevent J from  collecting the  roves; on  G intervening R took a  menacing attitude  and abused  G in filthy language. Soon  another sardar S took R’s side and also abused  G and  threatened him  with violence. The management  of the  appellant company  on  the complaint of served charge-sheets on the 2 workmen R and S which stated that as they had used abusive and filthy language and threatened to assault G, a supervisor, they  were guilty  of misconduct under standing order  No. 14  (c) (i) which contemplated two    types    of    misconduct;    one    wilful insubordination and  the other disobedience of any lawful and reasonable order of a superior.      The tribunal inter alia held that G not being the supervisor  of the Spinning Department where R and S  worked was  not a  direct superior of these workmen   and    they   were    not   guilty    of insubordination   or   disobedience   within   the Standing Order. 484 ^      Held, that  defiance of  persons in authority whether such  persons were the direct superiors of the  workmen  charged  or  not  and  also  riotous conduct which  made it  impossible for  the higher officers  to   discharge  their  duties  properly,

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amount to insubordination.      Held, futher,  that an order of dismissal may be rightly  sustained if  it is based on a finding on a  charge which  the workmen  concerned had the opportunity of  meeting even  though in the course of the  enquiry other incidental matters had crept in.      N.  Kalindi   v.  M/s.   Tata  Locomotive   & Engineering Co. Ltd. (1960) 2 L.L.J. 228, referred to.

JUDGMENT:      CIVIL APPELLATE  JURISDICTION :  Civil Appeal No. 11 of 1961.      Appeal by  special leave from the award dated January 7,  1960, of the Second Labour Court, West Bengal Calcutta, in case No. VIII-C/157 of 1958.      M. C. Setalvad, Attorney-General for India S. N. Andley, Rameshwar Nath and P. L. Vohra, for the appellant.      M. K. Ramamurthi, D. P. Singh, R. K. Garg and S. C. Agarwal, for the respondent.      1961. November  16. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by      SARKAR, J.-This  is  an  appeal  against  the award of  an industrial  tribunal holding that the dismissal of  two workmen  by  the  appellant  was unjustified and directing their reinstatement.      The appellant  has a  factory for making yarn out  of   jute.  There  were,  among  others,  two departments in  the factory,  namely the  Spinning and  the   Batching   departments.   The   workmen concerned were  Ramdhani and Sitaram and they were employed   in   the   Spinning   Department.   The preliminary stage of the preparation of yarn takes place in  the  Batching  Department  which  in  an unfinished stage  is passed  on  to  the  Spinning Department  for   final  processing   and  it   is thereafter used for weaving. 485      The appellant’s  case is  that on  March  22, 1958, a  Roving Sardar  of the Batching Department called  Jagabandhu  informed  Ghosh,  who  was  in charge  of  that  department,  that  Ramdhani  was throwing away  as  unusable  some  workable  roves (slivers of  jute drawn  out and slightly twisted) which came  from the  Batching Department  to  the Spinning Department.  Ghosh thereupon  went to the Spinning Department  and found  that the report of the Roving  Sardar was  correct. He then asked the Roving Sardar  to collect the roves thrown away by Ramdhani for  being placed  before the appropriate authority for inspection. Ghosh obviously intended to make a complaint against Ramdhani’s work to the superior authority.  At this  Ramdhani, who  was a Sardar  in   the  Spinning  Department,  tried  to prevent the  Roving  Sardar  from  collecting  the roves.  On  Ghosh  intervening,  Ramdhani  took  a menacing  attitude   and  abused   him  in  filthy language. Soon,  Sitaram, another  Sardar  of  the Spinning Department,  who had  nothing to  do with the matter,  came  there  and  took  the  side  of Ramdhani.  He   also  abused   Ghosh  and  further

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threatened him with violence.      Ghosh complained  to the  Management  of  the factory about  the conduct of Ramdhani and Sitaram and the  Management thereupon served charge-sheets on them.  The charge-sheets  in  substance  stated that Ramdhani  and Sitaram  had used  abusive  and filthy language  and threatened  to assault  Ghosh and they  were, therefore,  guilty  of  misconduct under  Standing  Order  No.  14  (c)  (i)  of  the Standing Orders  of the  appellant. That  Standing Order is in these terms :      14(c)-The following  acts and omissions shall           be treated   as misconduct :-           (i)-wilful      insubordination,      or      disobedience, whether alone or in combination      with 486      others, of  any lawful  or reasonable order a      superior.      Pursuant to the charge-sheets the appellant’s Labour Officer  held an  enquiry and  came to  the following findings :           "Both Sitaram  and Ramdhani accepted the      statement of  Jagabandhu the  only witness of      the incident.  Jagabandhu’s statement clearly      proves the offence of insubordination charged      against  Sitaram   and  Ramdhani.  These  two      workmen  could   not  place  any  witness  or      evidence by  which it could be satisfied that      they were not guilty.           The  refusal  of  acceptance  of  charge      sheet is  also another misconduct on the part      of both these two workmen. Moreover, they not      only  refused   to  accept  charge  sheet  to      explain their  conduct but  committed another      very serious offence of fomenting and causing      other Sardars  to stage  a stay in strike for      two days  on 24th  and 25th  March, 1958, and      thereby caused  serious dislocation  of work.      The situation  created by this stay in strike      was so  tense that  it  even  threatened  the      whole work  to be  dislocated and  closure of      the entire Mill.           From  Jagabandhu’s   statement  and  its      acceptance by  Ramdhani and  Sitaram and from      their subsequent  conduct  I  therefore  find      them guilty  of the charge of insubordination      and    also    activities    subversive    to      discipline." The  appellant   thereupon  passed  the  following order:           "Further to  the charge  sheet issued to      you on  26-3-58. I  have found  you guilty of      misconduct  under   Rule   14-C(I)   of   the      certified standing  orders.  My  decision  is      that you 487      should be  dismissed and I hereby dismiss you      from the services of the company."      The Union,  the respondent  in  this  appeal, then raised  an industrial  dispute as  to whether the  dismissal   of  Ramdhani   and  Sitaram   was justified and  this was referred by the Government to the  tribunal resulting  in the  award  earlier mentioned.

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    It was  conceded by  the appellant before the tribunal that  Ghosh was not the supervisor of the Spinning Department  where  Ramdhani  and  Sitaram worked and  was not,  therefore, a direct superior of these workmen. In view of this admission by the appellant the  tribunal observed  that if Ramdhani and Sitaram  disobeyed any  orders of  Ghosh  they could not  be held  guilty of  insubordination and disobedience within  the Standing  Order as  Ghosh was not  their superior. It came to the conclusion that the  decision of the enquiring officer of the appellant  that   these  workmen  were  guilty  of misconduct mentioned in Standing Order No.14(c)(i) was, therefore,  basically erroneous and could not be upheld. It thereupon directed the reinstatement of the dismissed workmen. It further held that the appellant had  been influenced  by the  finding of the enquiry officer that the workmen concerned had refused to accept the charge sheets and had caused a stay  in strike. It observed that these offences were not  the subject  matter of  the chargesheets and  the   appellant  could  not  take  them  into consideration in  passing the  order of dismissal. The tribunal  further observed that the conduct of the workmen was not proper and in that view of the matter refused  to direct  payment of  their wages during the  period of  their forced  unemployment, which period  was, however,  ordered to be treated as a  period of  leave without  pay. It is against this award that the present appeal has been taken.      Though  the  tribunal  did  not  express  any opinion as  to the  finding of fact by the enquiry officer 488 of the appellant, it is clear that it accepted the same, otherwise  it would  not have disallowed the workmen their wages for the period of their forced unemployment on  the ground that their conduct had not been proper. We have gone through the evidence on the  record and we feel not the slightest doubt that the  case of  the appellant was true. The two workmen had  been guilty of the misconduct imputed to them.      The question  is whether that misconduct came within the  Standing Order  No.(14)(c)(i). We  are entirely unable  to agree  with the  tribunal that the conduct  of the  workmen  did  not  amount  to wilful insubordination. It is clear to us that the Standing   Order   contemplates   two   types   of misconduct; one  is wilful insubordination and the other is disobedience of any lawful and reasonable order of  a superior. It is obvious that these two constitute different  categories of misconduct. If insubordination,  as   the  tribunal   held,   was disobedience to  the order  of an officer directly under whom  the workmen  charged  with  misconduct worked, then  the two  categories mentioned in the Standing Order  would have  amounted to  the  same misconduct. This  obviously cannot  be the  proper reading  of  the  Standing  order.  In  our  view, insubordination would  include defiance of persons in authority  whether such persons were the direct superiors of  the workmen charged or not. It would also  include   riotous  conduct   which  made  it impossible for  the higher  officers to  discharge

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their duties  properly.  Mr.  Ramamurthi  for  the Union said  that insubordination  was disobedience to a  prescribed rule.  We think that even in that sense the  workmen were guilty of insubordination. It was clearly an implied rule of the factory that higher  officers   would  not   be  thwarted   and prevented from  bringing  to  the  notice  of  the management the wastefulness of the workmen causing loss to the 489 employer. This is all that Ghosh was about in this case, and this aroused the wrath of the workmen.      Mr. Ramamurthi  also said  that it  was not a case of  wilful insubordination  because  Ramdhani was  entitled   to  throw   away  roves  which  he considered unworkable as his remuneration depended on  his   out-turn.  This   contention  is  wholly unfounded.  Ramdhani   got  weekly   wages  as  he admitted in  his own  evidence and  therefore  his wage did  not depend  on his  out-turn. Again  the conduct with  which he  had been  charged was  not throwing away  the roves  but adopting  a menacing attitude  towards   one  of  the  higher  officers employed by the appellant.      Mr.  Ramamurthy   further   said   that   the dismissal was  not really  on the finding that the workmen had  been guilty  of  insubordination  and that the  tribunal was  justified in  holding that the order  of dismissal  had been  induced by  the finding of  the enquiry  officer as to the refusal of the  workmen to  accept the  charge-sheets  and causing the stay in strike as no charge in respect of these  matters had  been preferred  against the workmen and  the latter had no chance of defending themselves against  such a charge. We have earlier set out  the order  of dismissal.  That order does not show  that the  order of  dismissal  had  been based on  any consideration other than the finding on the  charge brought against the workmen. In our view,  an   order  of  dismissal  may  be  rightly sustained if  it is based on a finding on a charge which the workmen concerned had the opportunity of meeting even  though in  the course of the enquiry other incidental  matters had crept in. One cannot take a  too legalistic  view in  these matters. We would also  observe that the two matters mentioned in  the   enquiry  officer’s   report  are  really connected with  the charge  and had been mentioned by the  enquiry officer  only to  corroborate  his finding on  the charge  brought, for  it  was  the misconduct mentioned in the charge-sheets 490 which led  to the  workmen refuse  to  accept  the charge-sheets and  causing  the  stay  in  strike. Inevitably, those  questions would  crop up in the enquiry and the enquiry officer could legitimately refer to  them. They  would  further  be  relevant matters  for   the  employer’s   consideration  in deciding the  punishment  to  be  awarded  to  the workmen concerned  for the  breach of the Standing Order. In  any event,  there is no reason to think that  the   order  of   dismissal  was   based  on consideration  of  any  finding  other  than  that mentioned in the charge sheets. We may refer to N. Kalindi v.  M/s. Tata Locomotive & Engineering Co.

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Ltd. (1), in this connection.      Mr. Ramamurthy  also argued that the order of dismissal was  really an instance of victimisation and that  this is  in substance  what the tribunal had found.  We are  entirely unable to accept this contention. The  workmen in their evidence had not suggested that  they had  been dismissed by way of victimisation and  neither do  we think  that  the tribunal had come to any finding of victimisation.      We, therefore,  think that  the order  of the tribunal cannot  be upheld.  We accordingly set it aside  and   hold  that  the  order  of  dismissal Ramdhani and Sitaram had been properly made by the appellant.                                    Appeal allowed. 491