Order.- The proprietor of the Royal Printing Works, a printing establishment of Mount Road, is the petitioner. In October, 1957, he passed an order dismissing one Manickam, a watchman then in his employ. In December, 1957, he dismissed another Kuppuswami who was working in the composing section. In respect of both these matters and certain others, industrial disputes were raised which were referred by the Government of Madras for adjudication to the Industrial Tribunal, Madras. So far as Manickam and Kuppuswami are concerned, the Tribunal passed an order on 14th February, 1958, directing their reinstatement. The present petition has been filed for the issue of an appropriate writ to quash this order of the Tribunal. The case relating to Manickam may be first disposed of. He was a watchman in the printing establishment of the petitioner from January, 1957. On 27th September, 1957, another employee named Balaraman reported to the proprietor that he had seen Manickam taking an aluminium vessel from the machine section and hiding it near a wall and, that it was subsequently taken away by a woman. Manickam was therefore suspected of having removed some property belonging to the press. On 5th October, 1957, charges were framed against him to the effect that he had removed some type-material in that vessel. The enquiry was posted for 15th October 1957 and the management wrote to Manickam telling him that the enquiry had been fixed for that date. On that date Manickam wrote to say that he had not received a copy of the charges. The management then sent a memo. of charges by registered post fixing 25th October, 1957, as the date for the enquiry. But that letter was returned by the post office. On 25th October, 1957, Manickam did not appear at the enquiry. The management thereupon dismissed him. The Tribunal observed: “ It will thus be seen that Manickam had no knowledge of the enquiry ; and further during the enquiry, there was utterly no evidence to show that Manickam was guilty of theft” . The Management did not find that Manickam had evaded the receipt of the notice sent to him by registered post. Nor was there any evidence to that effect. The conclusion of the Tribunal, therefore, that Manickam had been dismissed without a proper enquiry cannot be disturbed. The writ petition so far as he is concerned must be dismissed. The Management did not find that Manickam had evaded the receipt of the notice sent to him by registered post. Nor was there any evidence to that effect. The conclusion of the Tribunal, therefore, that Manickam had been dismissed without a proper enquiry cannot be disturbed. The writ petition so far as he is concerned must be dismissed. I now go to Kuppuswami. He had been working in the Royal Printing Works for seven years, and, at the relevant time, he was in charge of the Job Section. On 28th September, 1957, the management framed three charges against him. The University of Madras had placed an order with this firm for printing hall tickets for Intermediate Examination. The first charge against Kuppuswami was that on these hall tickets instead of printing the conditions relating to the Intermediate Examination, conditions relating to the Pre-University Examination were printed. The second charge was that instead of printing only on one side of the paper the “tabulated result forms” of the University, he had them printed on both sides. The third charge was that while printing “ cheque-covering-letters” on behalf of the Udipi Hotel a mistake was made, Udipi Hotel being printed at the top and States Hotel at the bottom. On 1st October, 1957, Kuppuswami submitted his explanation. The proprietor held an enquiry on 4th October, 1957 and on nth December, 1957, he passed an order terminating the services of Kuppuswami. When the matter went before the Tribunal it recorded the evidence of some witnesses and reached the conclusion that there was no material on which Kuppuswami could be found guilty. It also found that the procedure adopted by the management was wrong in various ways. Mr. T. M. Krishnaswami Ayyar, the learned advocate for the petitioner, first contended that the Tribunal was in error in treating the matter as though it were itself trying the issue whether Kuppuswami was guilty or not of the charges that had been framed against him and that, it had no jurisdiction to take evidence to decide that question for itself. He referred to the decision of the Supreme Court in Messrs. Indian Iron &38; Steel Co. v. Their Workmen1, where the scope of the powers and duties of an Industrial Tribunal in a proceeding of this kind has been explained. He referred to the decision of the Supreme Court in Messrs. Indian Iron &38; Steel Co. v. Their Workmen1, where the scope of the powers and duties of an Industrial Tribunal in a proceeding of this kind has been explained. “Undoubtedly the management of a concern has power to direct its own internal administration and discipline ; but the power is not unlimited and when a dispute arises, Industrial Tribunals have been given the power to see whether the termination of service of a workman is justified and to give appropriate relief. In cases of dismissal on misconduct, the Tribunal does not, however, act as a Court of appeal and substitute its own judgment for that of the management. It will interfere (i) when there is a want of good faith, (ii) when there is victimisation or unfair labour practice, (iii) when the management has been guilty of a basic error or violation of principles of natural justice and (iv) when on the materials, the finding is completely baseless or perverse.” Mr. Mohan Kumaramangalam, however, argued that an Industrial Tribunal has jurisdiction to take whatever evidence it considers necessary to decide the issue before it, and, that in taking evidence to decide whether Kuppuswami was guilty of the charges framed against him or not, the Tribunal was not acting in excess of its jurisdiction. I have no doubt that an Industrial Tribunal has jurisdiction to take all the evidence it considers necessary to determine the questions it is called upon to decide. But, in the present case, the Tribunal went far beyond that. What it did was to convert itself into a Court of first instance for disciplinary proceedings. Instead of merely determining whether there was want of good faith on the part of the management or whether Kuppuswami was the victim of unfair labour practice, or whether there has been a violation of any principle of natural justice, or whether on the materials the finding was baseless or perverse, instead of doing this, the Tribunal proceeded as though it were a Court trying the question for the first time. That it had no power to do. If the matter had stopped at this stage I would have been bound to set aside the order of the Tribunal so far as it relates to Kuppuswami. That it had no power to do. If the matter had stopped at this stage I would have been bound to set aside the order of the Tribunal so far as it relates to Kuppuswami. The Tribunal has, however, found that the enquiry against Kuppuswami was defective, and, in that respect its order stands on better ground. It was explained to me that in the Petitioner’s business, job printing, involved these processes. When an order was received the clerk who got it would hand it over to Kuppuswami. Kuppuswami, in his turn, would entrust the work to a compositor. The matter prepared by the compositor, which is called the rough correction proof, would be sent to a person called an examiner. After he had carried out the necessary corrections Kuppuswami would get back the corrected material and send it to the compositor who would prepare a clean proof. That clean proof would be sent to the person who has placed the order. After he had approved of it a third proof would be taken which is called the final strike proof That again would be sent to the examiner and after any further corrections he might make had been incorporated, the strike order would be issued and the material sent to the machine for being printed. The charges framed against Kuppuswami do not show for which of these various processes Kuppuswami was responsible and what the nature of his default was. In the evidence which the petitioner gave before the Tribunal he stated: “ In all the three cases which form the subject-matter of charge Kuppuswami did not send the proof to the examiner but sent them to the machine.” If this was the real charge against Kuppuswami the Tribunal was right in observing that there was no evidence in support of it. The management did not record the evidence of any of the examiners. Alternatively, the various “ proofs” relating to these charges must have been preserved and made available since they would have been in the nature of “material objects” and shown to some extent at least whether the relevant proofs were sent to the examiner or not. The management did not record the evidence of any of the examiners. Alternatively, the various “ proofs” relating to these charges must have been preserved and made available since they would have been in the nature of “material objects” and shown to some extent at least whether the relevant proofs were sent to the examiner or not. The proprietor admitted, “ these proofs in regard to these three charges are not now available in my office ; and Kuppuswami must have preserved them, but I do not find them in the office.” The position, therefore, is that there was no evidence to support the charge. The petition before me must fail in respect of Kuppuswami also. There are certain passages in the order of the Tribunal which as I understand them suggest that carelessness on the part of an employee in relation to his work would not justify serious punishment. With this view I definitely disagree. Carelessness can often be productive of more harm than deliberate wickedness or malevolence. I shall not refer to the classic example of the sentry who sleeps at his post and allows the enemy to slip through. There are other more familiar instances. A compositor who carelessly places a plus sign instead of a minus sign in a question paper may cause numerous students to fail. A compounder in a hospital or chemist’s shop who makes up the mixtures or other medicines carelessly may cause quite a few deaths. The man at an airport who does not carefully filter the petrol poured into a plane may cause it to crash. The railway employee who does not set the points carefully may cause a head-on collision. Misplaced sympathy can be a great evil. Carelessness and indifference to duty are not the highroads to individual or national prosperity. In the result, the petition is dismissed, but, there will be no order as to costs. V.S. ---------- Petition dismissed.