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Industrial dispute‑--

--‑‑Dismissal for misconduct‑Bus conductor charged for misappro priation of fare received from passengers without issuance of tickets‑Circumstances indicating that ticketless passengers had stated in presence of accused that they had paid their fare ‑ Omission to record statement of such passengers by checkers, in circumstances, held, not fatal to dismissal order‑Order of Labour Court dismissing grievance petition upheld by Appellate Tribunal ‑Industrial Rela tions Ordinance (XXIII of 1969), Ss. 25‑A & 37

Ch. Sadiq Muhammad Warraich for Appellant.

Asghar Mahmood for Respondent.

The decision dated 13‑12‑1982 passed by the learned Presiding Officer, Punjab Labour Court No. 6, Rawalpindi has been challenged in this appeal, whereby the grievance petition of the appellant for his re‑instate ment in service was dismissed.

2. The appellant was acting as conductor in a bus on 25‑9‑1980 when the bus was checked. Ten passengers were found without tickets. The appellant is alleged to have recovered the fare. Reply to the charge‑sheet was consider ed as unsatisfactory and enquiry was held against him which culminated in his dismissal from service. This is an admitted fact that the passengers had no tickets when the bus was checked. The plea of the appellant was that he had issued tickets but the children of the lady passengers may have lost them. In answer to the charge‑sheet the appellant pleaded that the lady passengers had lost the tickets and in order to avoid the payment of fresh fare they had falsely implicated him. This shows that the passengers had in the presence of the appellant said that they had paid fare but no tickets had been issued to them by the appellant. Even if it be taken that the said lady passengers had lost tickets, they would have frankly stated so instead of falsely implicating the appellant. In these circumstances, non‑recording of the statement of the without tickets passengers by the checkers is not fatal to the case of the respondent, the misappropriation of fare stood duly proved against the appellant. His petition, therefore, was rightly dismissed.

3. As upshot of the observations made above, I do not find any force in the appeal and dismiss it.

Appeal dismissed.

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