Gujarat High Court: The Division Bench of Vikram Nath, CJ and Ashutosh J. Shastri, J., dismissed a Letters Patent Appeal which was filed aggrieved by the judgment and order passed in Special Civil Application.
According to the petitioner-appellant, respondent 1, was a relative of one of the trustees and after clearing the SSC examination, while pursuing her graduation she intended to gain teaching experience for which she was allowed to attend the school namely, Dr Chamanlal Mehta Primary School. Thereafter, upon completion of B.Ed., studies, respondent 1 joined another school and, according to the appellant, approached respondent 5 by submitting her Form No.1 an amount of gratuity. A case was registered before Assistant Labour Commissioner and without considering the objection with regard to maintainability and dehors the provisions, particularly, Section 7(1) of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972, the authority directed the appellant – petitioner to pay an amount of gratuity to the extent of Rs 1, 07,885 with 10% interest. It was also agitated by the appellant – petitioner that respondent 1 approached the authority after almost a period of 100 days delay. Appellant – petitioner further submitted that Single Judge outrightly without considering the aforesaid issues has erroneously passed an order.
The Court stated that order cannot be said to be perverse in any form, as all possible contentions which had been raised have been dealt with by the Single Judge. The Court further mentioned that after construing the relevant provisions, namely Section 2(e) of the Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Act, 2009 and after analyzing the facts in the context of Section 40(c) of the Act, they were in conformity with the view taken by the Single Judge. The Court while dismissing the appeal reproduced the observations contained in the order passed by Single Judge.
“14. Both Controlling Authority and the Appellate Authority under the Payment of Gratuity Act have rightly held and observed on the strength of the various documentary evidences that not only the school authority has given ‘no objection’ on the basis of which the PF has been paid to her, her services has been found satisfactory by the school authority and that certificate is one of the basis for both the authorities to hold in favour of respondent no.1. The stand taken is completely self contradictory and the orders of both the authorities since are legal and justifiable, there is no reason for the Court to interfere. The Act itself is self contained when both the authorities, provided under the very Act, has concurrently held in favour of respondent no.1, there hardly arises any reason for this Court to interfere.
- Having thus considered all the above aspects, this Court finds no merit even for issuance of notice and the matter deserves to be dismissed in limine. Hence, Rejected.”
[Godhara Sarvajanik Shikshan Mandal v. Dimpleben Bhrupeshkumar Shah, 2020 SCC OnLine Guj 1656, decided on 03-02-2020]
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