The Bombay High Court has said the
approach of government employees that no action can be taken against them in
spite of wrongdoings needed to stop.
The Bombay High Court has said the approach of government
employees that no action can be taken against them in spite of wrongdoings
needed to stop.
“There is such a thing as too much leniency. The approach in this
country of believing that when one works for government no action can ever be
taken no matter how persistently one is found to be doing wrong is an approach
that needs to now stop as fast as possible,” the bench of Justices GS Patel and
Gauri Godse of the Bombay high court said this while hearing an appeal filed by
a former Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) bus conductor.
The bench was hearing the appeal of Jaising Sonawane, a bus
conductor, against whom an order passed by a single-judge bench of a high court
in 2005 upholding a labour court verdict that confirmed the termination of his
services.
The case before the court was that in December 1995, Sonawane was
on duty on the Pune to Borivali route when an inspection squad checked the bus
at Lonavala. It found that Sonawane had wrongly punched some tickets and had an
excess of Rs 24.5 in his possession.
Moreover, it was found that the wrongly punched tickets of six
passengers out of the 50 on the bus were not mentioned in the waybill. Sonawane
punched the tickets as being from Borivali to Pune, ie the return journey,
rather than Pune to Borivali for six of the passengers on the board. The ticket
numbers were identified and so was the denomination of each ticket. The
Borivali to Pune fare was Rs 40 at that time, but the Pune to Borivali fare was
Rs 44 per passenger in 1995.
A chargesheet was filed against Sonawane and, following an
inquiry, his services were terminated. Sonawane raised an industrial dispute
and a reference came to be made to the labour court, which passed an award in
February 2005 dismissing his reference, prompting him to file the petition
before the high court.
The advocate for Sonawane argued before the Division Bench about
the disproportionality of the punishment. It was argued that a lenient view
ought to have been taken and that a lesser punishment would serve the ends of
justice. The Bench stated that though proportionality was crucial in
decision-making processes, it did not mean that a lenient view could be taken
of every infringement.
"As to the generality of the proposition that proportionality
is crucial in any decision-making process, there cannot be any doubt. But this
does not mean that every infraction has to be allowed to be got away with just
a slap on the wrist, as it was. 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," it stated.
Replying to Sonawane’s contention that there was no actual
defalcation or misappropriation on his part, the Court underlined that the
labour court had concluded that there was a mala fide intention on Sonawane's
part. The bench pointed to the Labour Court order which stated that there was
an intention on Sonawane’s part to use these six tickets for a return journey.
In other words, this meant that there was some illicit intention for the
journey in one direction.
The court observed that Sonawane’s lawyer’s argument 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 wrongdoing,"
the bench said.
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