S.C. Gupte JUDGMENT
S.C. Gupte, J.
1. This writ petition, filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, challenges an award passed by the Labour Court at Mumbai rejecting a reference. The reference impugned an order of termination passed by the Respondent Corporation holding the Petitioner to be guilty of misconduct in a domestic inquiry. The Labour Court found the inquiry to be fair and proper, the findings of the Inquiry Officer to be acceptable and the punishment to be proportionate.
2. Since 19 April 1988, the Petitioner had been working as a bus driver with the Respondent. On 10 May 1996, the State Transport bus driven by the Petitioner collided with a truck coming in the opposite direction, resulting into the death of 2 passengers and injuries to several others. The Respondent issued a charge-sheet against the Petitioner, levelling charges of misconduct. The Inquiry Officer found the Petitioner to be guilty of gross negligence in driving and held his misconduct of indiscipline, severe damage and inconvenience to the Corporation and the public, breach of departmental circulars/directives and rash driving to be proved. The Respondent thereafter issued a show-cause notice concerning the proposed disciplinary action and after hearing him dismissed him from service with effect from 27 May 1997. Being aggrieved by the dismissal, the Petitioner raised an industrial dispute which was referred as Reference (IDA) No. 811 of 1998 to IV Labour Court at Mumbai. By its preliminary awards, the Labour Court held the inquiry to be fair and proper and findings not to be perverse. Thereafter, after hearing the parties on the quantum of punishment, the Court passed its final award, rejecting the reference, finding the punishment to be proportionate.
3. Learned Counsel for the Petitioner, apart from assailing the fairness and propriety of the inquiry and its findings, questioned the disciplinary action from the standpoint of principles of natural justice. Learned Counsel submitted that the person issuing the charge-sheet, and conducting the inquiry himself acted as a disciplinary authority and passed the dismissal order. He acted as an investigator, prosecutor and also a judge. Learned Counsel relied on the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of State of Uttaranchal v. Kharak Singh MANU/SC/7951/2008 : 2008 III CLR 1062 (para 12), and the judgments of our court in the cases of N.S.S Chari v. Union of India 1988 II CLR 249 (paras 19 and 20), Murlidhar Sitaram Rane v. State of Maharashtra 1990 I CLR 337 (paras 15 to 18), D.S. Patil v. R.B. & Co. 1986 (56) CLR 39 (para 8) and Shantilal Motilal Marwadi v. Lipton Tea 1991 II CLR 225 (paras 7 and 8) in support of his contentions.
4. The principle of law laid down in the judgments cited by learned Counsel for the Petitioner is that domestic inquiries must be conducted honestly, bonafide and without any bias; the delinquent employee must be given a fair opportunity to defend himself at the inquiry; and he must have an equally fair opportunity to show cause against the penalty proposed against him based on the findings of the inquiry. These requirements, which are basic and form part of the very process of natural justice by which all judicial proceedings must be informed, lead to other incidental or subsidiary requirements, namely, the inquiry officer cannot himself be a witness or he cannot both prosecute the delinquent and be his judge or where the enquiry officer is other than the disciplinary authority, the proceedings of inquiry and disciplinary action must be held in two separate stages. In Kharak Singh's case (supra), the enquiry officer after putting certain questions to th........