HC slaps Rs 1 lakh fine for 32-year wage battle

The Delhi High Court has imposed Rs 1 lakh as costs on the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) for pursuing litigation against a bus conductor for 32 years over the payment of back wages for 17 months, terming it an abuse of the process of law.

Dismissing the DTC’s appeal against a 2004 industrial tribunal’s order in the conductor’s favour, Justice Amit Mahajan said the department’s “continued litigation” for such an “inordinately long period” was an avoidable expenditure of public money. In the order passed on September 2, the judge said DTC was at liberty to recover the cost from the officer responsible for pursuing such an “insignificant dispute”.

The case arose from an alleged failure of the bus conductor to issue tickets to three passengers despite taking the due fare of Rs 67 from them in November 1994.

“The manner in which the present proceedings have been pursued, despite the limited nature of the claim, warrants imposition of costs upon the concerned officers,” Justice Mahajan said in the order.

“Accordingly, costs of Rs 1,00,000/- shall be paid by the petitioner Department, out of which Rs 25,000/- shall be paid to the DHLSC; Rs 50,000/- to the PM Relief Fund; and Rs 25,000/- to the Respondent (conductor),” the order said. After the alleged incident, the conductor was placed under suspension, but despite the enquiry officer ruling in his favour, the disciplinary authority disagreed and issued a show-cause notice for his removal from service.

The disciplinary authority subsequently removed him from service with effect from August 1996, which was set aside in appeal by the DTC Chairman-cum-Managing Director. In 1998, the DTC Chairman directed that the conductor be reinstated in service without back wages and reduced pay scale.

The matter then reached the Industrial Tribunal, which, in 2004, held that the punishment was illegal and without basis. It opined that the conductor was entitled to his wages on his regular pay scale, and for arrears of the reduced wages along with his regular wages from August 1996 to January 1998. The High Court had stayed the tribunal’s order in July 2005.

Justice Mahajan observed that the tribunal’s findings were not perverse or legally unsustainable as they were based on the material placed before it, including the management’s failure to produce the enquiry report or otherwise establish any lawful disagreement with the enquiry officer’s findings.

“Thus, in the opinion of this court, the view taken by the tribunal is a reasonable and plausible view on the facts of the case and, therefore, calls for no interference by this Court in exercise of its extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India,” the court concluded.

“It is also necessary to note that the petitioner Department has been litigating the issue of payment of 17 months’ back wages to the respondent for the last 32 years. The continued litigation over such a limited claim, for an inordinately long period, amounts to an abuse of the process of law and has resulted in avoidable expenditure of public money,” it said.