Evidence Against Staff Must Be Produced Initially: Sc

The five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court has held that the employer must produce all the evidence against a delinquent employee before the labour court at the first instance itself and its right to lead additional evidence should not be exercised at the final stage.

With this judgment, the court has resolved the conflict said to be existing between two sets of earlier judgments.

Though the ruling was made in the case, Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation vs Lakshmidevamma, it will cover several other appeals pending in the high courts raising the same issue.

The conflict was between the view expressed by the apex court in Shambhu Nath Goyal vs Bank of Baroda and in Rajendra Jha vs Labour Court, both of the 1985 vintage. Even in the present Supreme Court judgment, the five judges wrote three separate judgments, with one dissenter.

 

The majority view supported the decision in the Shambhu Nath case. The Shambhu Nath judgment held: "The rights which the employer has in law to adduce additional evidence in a proceeding before the labour court or industrial tribunal either under Section 10 or Section 33 of the Industrial Disputes Act questioning the legality of the order terminating the service must be availed of by the employer by making a proper request at the time when it files its statement of claim or written statement."

The present judgment reiterated this view as the correct one. Justice Santosh Hegde, writing the majority judgment, stated that the right of the management to lead evidence before the labour court was not a statutory right. "This is actually a procedure laid down by this court to avoid delay and multiplicity of proceedings in the disposal of disputes between the management and the workers."

Though the Supreme Court had granted this right to the management, there was some difference of opinion in regard to the timings of making such application. It has now been confirmed that the management has to exercise its right of leading fresh evidence "at the first available opportunity and not at any time thereafter during the proceedings before the labour court or the tribunal".

In a separate but concurring judgment, Justice VN Khare and Justice Shivaraj Patil explained that this rule was laid down to avoid unnecessary delay and multiplicity of proceedings.

They added: "But this should not be understood as placing fetters on the powers of the court/tribunal requiring or directing parties to lead additional evidence including production of documents at any stage of the proceedings before they are concluded if on facts and circumstances of the case it is deemed just and necessary in the interest of justice."

The dissenting judge, Justice YK Sabharwal, said that the majority view would take away the discretion of the labour court.

The decision to allow the management to lead additional evidence should essentially lie within the discretion of the labour court. If any illegality is committed, it can be corrected in the higher forums. According to the judge, the management can make its request any time before the labour court closes the proceedings in the case.