Published on: February 1, 2024 at 19:00 IST
Court: Supreme Court of India
Citation: U.P. Singh V. Punjab National Bank (2023)
Honourable Supreme Court of India has held that a person is deemed to be in the service of the employer during the period of suspension. It is held that the relationship of Master and Servant does not come to an end and all the rules and regulations governing the post still continues to apply on person and merely non-payment of subsistence allowance does not mean that the workman is no more an employee of the organization. It is held that an employee can avail remedy as available under the law for any grievance against the employer. However an aggrieved employee does not have any right to sit at home and decide on his own that an order of the employer is illegal or erroneous.
16. The aforesaid conduct of the workman itself was sufficient to non-suit him as has rightly been done. His argument that being on suspension, he could not have been treated to have been voluntarily retired as per the deeming provision, is merely to be noticed and rejected, as during his suspension also, the relationship of master and servant does not come to an end. All the rules and regulations governing the post continue to apply. Merely because the Bank had stopped paying subsistence allowance to the workman does not mean that the workman was no more an employee of the Bank.
The action was taken by the Bank only to ensure that somehow or the other, the workman joined his duty. However, it seems that he had some other scheme in his mind. The idea seems to be to lay a claim on all his wages. Initially, to get subsistence allowance without working and then claim reinstatement and back wages. If Clause XVI in the Bipartite Agreement is seen, the workman could have been treated to have been voluntarily retired immediately upon expiry of 90 days from 28.09.1983 as he had failed to join duty. Letter dated 05.01.1984 issued by the Bank was duly acknowledged by him in his communication but still he failed to join duty and continued writing letters. Despite this fact, the Bank was magnanimous enough to have issued a final notice to the workman on 05.10.1984, granting him 30 days’ time to report for duty. This is also acknowledged by the workman. But for reasons best known to him he failed to comply with the same.
Drafted By Abhijit Mishra