Approach Of Believing That No Action Can Be Taken Against Wrongdoings Of Govt Servants Needs To Stop: Bombay High Court

A division bench of Justices G.S. Patel and Gauri Godse was dealing with an appeal against order of a single judge bench declining to interfere with the labour court award that upheld the termination of the appellant.

The appellant Jaising Sonawane is a former Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) bus conductor. In December 1995 he was on duty on a bus running from Pune to Borivali. An inspections squad found that he had wrongly punched tickets of 6 passengers as being for Borivali to Pune instead of Pune to Borivali. He had an excess of about 25 rupees. Further, there was no entry in the Way Bill. A chargesheet was filed and he was terminated after the enquiry.

Sonawane raised an industrial dispute in the Labour Court which was dismissed after consideration of submission from both Sonawane and MSRTC. He then filed a writ petition against the Labour Court Award. Justice AP Shah noted that Sonawane in the past had been terminated twice for ticket related misconduct but was reinstated both times due to leniency. The Court thus refused to interfere with the award noting that Sonawane had a record of similar misconduct. Hence the current appeal.

The Bench in the current case said that proportionality of punishment must be considered in any case but that doesn't mean that every single infraction be treated leniently. "When one assesses the doctrine of proportionality, one looks not only at the immediate cause inviting punishment but also at the entire context and, in a given case, a pattern or a history of conduct especially past conduct", the court stated.

Advocate R. V. Govilkar for the appellant argued that no actual misappropriation had taken place. The court responded by saying that the Labour Court had sufficient reason to conclude that Sonawane was operating on mala fide intentions. "The argument by Mr Govilkar that there was no actual defalcation or misappropriation is less than impressive. It means that unless somebody actually commits theft, no action can be taken even if the person is apprehended while in the process of attempting a wrong doing", the court said.

The court refused to interfere with the impugned order, remaking that there is such a thing as "too much leniency".

Case no. – Letters Patent Appeal No. 316 of 2013 in Writ Petition No. 5118 of 2005

Case Title – Jaising Nivrutti Sonawane v. Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation

Coram – Justice G.S. Patel & Justice Gauri Godse