Guru Teg Bahadur Sahib Charitable Hospital and Another vs The Presiding Officer, Labour Court, Ludhiana and Another

K. Kannan, J.—The revision is against the order passed at the preliminary stage by the Labour Court on a direction given by this Court for consideration of the matter whether the claimant was a ''workman'' within the definition of Section 2(s) of the Industrial Disputes Act. The claimant was seeking for a reference for industrial adjudication on a plea that he had been wrongly terminated from service when he was working as an Anaesthetist at Guru Teg Bahadur Sahib Charitable Hospital, Ludhiana. The direction for an adjudication regarding the status was necessitated on a plea taken by the Management that the petitioner was a MBBS doctor with a postgraduate diploma in anesthesiology and was the Head of the Department of the Anesthesiology Department of 300 bedded hospital run by the Charitable Trust. While the petitioner contended that he was merely like any other ordinary employee doing a technical job, the Management contended that he was the Head of the Department, who approved and recommended leave letters for Junior Assistants and Theater Assistants. He was the Incharge of the operations conducted and he was not a workman. At the trial, on a direction by this Court earlier for the preliminary adjudication of whether the claimant was a workman, the Management was relying on the leave letters signed and forwarded by him to the Medical Superintendent. The claimant admits his signatures, but denied the recitals mentioned above his handwriting. The Tribunal observed that the Management had not availed to itself the opportunity of proving the documents/recitals by examining a handwriting expert. The counsel points out to me the originals of what had been filed before the Tribunal. The recitals above the signatures admitted by him are in a settled hand and written in the same ink. The recitals are just not in one word but it is as long as full sentence running to three lines. The signature and the handwriting are so typical with a left sided slant that seems characteristic of the handwriting of the same person and synchronizing with the signature pattern. The Court''s power to compare signature or make appropriate inferences on its own u/s 76 of the Evidence Act was not exercised by the Tribunal and it was abdicating its judicial function by looking for a report of a handwriting expert. The Tribunal must have seen that the claimant was deliberately speaking untruth and denying the recitals because if admitted, it shall clearly prove instances of recommendation for leave, receiving applications for grant of appointments and acceptance of resignations of his subordinates. The counsel for the respondent has very serious objection to any characterization of the claimant as a witness against truth and that the documents shown before the court were not themselves exhibited as evidence. I do not have the benefit of the Tribunal''s file and I am only guided by what the order of Tribunal states and the documents relief on by counsel as originals of documents filed before the Tribunal. One Sewa Singh, who claimed that he joined as a Nursing Superintendent, gave evidence that he was working under the claimant and that the claimant used to sanction leave. Leave applications filed by the doctor Mohandeep Kaur and Ajay Kumar were also filed before the court below, all of which were rejected as irrelevant by the Tribunal.

If the claimant was a postgraduate diploma in Anesthesiology, with M.B.B.S. background and acting as a Head of the Department for Anesthesiology, he could never have been treated as doing a work of clerical nature. The position of a doctor in a hospital of whether the post qualifies for the definition of a workman is not an uncharted territory. Even before the Tribunal, decisions have been cited and the Tribunal has merely shoved them under carpet as inapplicable. In M.M. Wadia Charitable Hospital Vs. Dr. Umakant Ramchandra Warerkar, , a person, who had been serving in a hospital as a doctor rendering professional service, was stated to be not a workman under the definition of Section 2(s) of the Industrial Disputes Act. The judgment, however, stated that it was confined to the facts of the case and was not to be an expression of opinion for all doctors. The counsel for the respondent refers me to a judgment of this Court in State of Haryana v. Dr. Narender Kumar Goel and another, 1982 (2) S.L.R. 229 that held that a doctor falls within the term of ''workman'', if he is not employed in a managerial or administrative capacity, but functioning only to treat patients. In this case, admittedly he was a Head of the Department. A Head of the Department, in the very nature of things, controls the constituents. He cannot carry a designation without meaning and if he was running the department as its head, it must be taken that the department was required to be run by human agency that controlled several other personnel. A 300 bedded hospital with surgical facilities and capping a person as its head comes with the responsibility to supervise the functioning of several persons, including minding, the roster of doctors and assistants, appointing, terminating and approving leave letters for his subordinates, all of such functions, he verily performed. The characterization of such a person as a workman was clearly wrong and against the evidence placed by the Management before the Tribunal.

The learned counsel for the respondent cites to me a judgment of the Supreme Court in D.P. Maheshwari Vs. Delhi Administration and Others, that held that it is the duty of a Tribunal to resist passing orders on preliminary issues and allowing for scope of stay of the proceedings at the higher forum. In this case, the Court was passing an order on a preliminary issue after evidence of witnesses on the crucial aspect of the content of work by the claimant. This was being done on an express directions of this Court in a civil revision filed by the Management and therefore, the claimant cannot complain after submitting himself to such an order from this Court in an earlier round to plead that the Tribunal could not have passed such an order as a preliminary issue. The Tribunal was carrying out this Court''s directions and was not itself undertaking an adjudication as a preliminary issue. I am convinced that the claimant was not a workman that would fall under the definition of Section 2(s) of the Industrial Disputes Act and the decision in that regard by the Tribunal is erroneous. The reference was not valid and consistent with the finding as made by this Court, no further proceedings could continue before the Tribunal. The order impugned is set aside and the civil revision is allowed. There shall be no directions as to costs.