A 25-year-old court battle ended on a disappointing note for a bus conductor with the Supreme Court upholding his employer’s decision to sack him for collecting fares from 78 passengers without issuing tickets.
Misconduct“Where the person deals with public money or is engaged in financial transactions or acts in a fiduciary capacity, the highest degree of integrity and trustworthiness is a must and unexceptionable,” the apex court quoted in a recent written order.
On October 8, 1990, an inspecting team of the Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation, in a surprise check, had found that 78 passengers had paid Pradeep Kumar, the conductor in question, the fare but were without tickets to show.
Two years after the incident, the Corporation fired him for misconduct following a departmental enquiry. Mr. Kumar had moved a labour court, which held the decision to sack him was “too severe”. It further directed the Corporation to re-instate him without any back wages but with continuity in service and full wages.
The Uttarakhand High Court too dismissed the Corporation’s appeal against the labour court verdict in 2008.
Deciding the Corporation’s second appeal in the Supreme Court, a Vacation Bench of Justices A.K. Goel and A.M. Khanwilkar upheld the public transporter’s decision to terminate Mr. Kumar's services.
Breach of trustThe Corporation argued in the apex court that his conduct amounted to criminal breach of trust.
Dismissing the labour court’s finding, the apex court said it was not the amount of money involved that decides a person's punishment but the mental make-up and the type of public duty performed by him.
