1. This appeal is directed against the judgment of the Allahabad Hi Court dated 15-10-1993 in Writ Petition No. 19349 of 1992 whereby the High Court has allowed the said writ petition filed by Respondent I. The facts, briefly stated, are as follows

2. Basudeo Chaudhary, Respondent I herein, (hereinafter referred to as the petitioner") was employed as Conductor with the U.P. State Road Transport Corporation (hereinafter referred to as "the Corporation"). Disciplinary proceedings were initiated againsr him on charges of misconduct and after conducting an inquiry wherein the charges were found proved, the petitioner was removed from service by order dated 17-4-1985. The said removal from service of the petitioner gave rise to an industrial dispute which was referred for adjudication to the Labour Court, Gorakhpur. Before the Labour Court, it was contended on behalf of the petitioner that the domestic inquiry was not fair and proper. The said plea of the petitioner was accepted by the Labour Court and the Corporation was permitted to adduce evidence to prove the charges. The Corporation adduced evidence, documentary as well as oral, in support of the charges before the Labour Court and the petitioner apart from examining himself produced two witnesses in support of his case. After considering the evidence on record, the Labour Court held that the charges levelled against the petitioner were established and the termination of his services was not invalid and illegal a and he was not entitled to any relief. The petitioner challenged the award of the Labour Court by filing the writ petition giving rise to this appeal. The High Court has allowed the said writ petition on the view that the misconduct was that the petitioner had attempted to cause a loss of Rs 65 to the Corporation and that the said misconduct was not of such a nature as to justify the action taken by the Corporation in terminating the services of the petitioner. The High Court has quashed the award of the Labour Court and has set aside the order removing the petitioner from service. The Corporation has been directed to reinstate the petitioner with effect from 1-10-1993 and to pay him the regular wages but he would not be entitled to back wages. It has been directed that the petitioner shall be censured for the incident.

3. The substance of the charges that have been levelled against the petitioner was that on 17-6-1982, he was posted on bus No. URO 2352 going from Faizabad to Chapra and that 23 passengers bound for Gorakhpur had boarded the bus at Basti. On inspection of the bus at Meerganj (between Basti and Khalilabad) it was found that the petitioner had recovered from the 23 passengers, who had boarded the bus at Basti, Rs 5.35 per head, the prescribed fare for travelling from Basti to Gorakhpur but in the. waybill he had entered as having received the sum of Rs 2.35 from each of them. Subsequently the said figure would have been altered from Rs 2.35 to Rs 2.85, which was the fare from Khalilabad to Gorakhpur and the petitioner would have retained the balance amount of Rs 2.50 per passenger. On earlier occasions also the petitioner had adopted the same modus operandi and in the previous waybills prepared by the petitioner there was overwriting and the figure 3 had been changed to 8 and the fare amount of Rs 2.35 had been altered to Rs 2.85. In order to prove the charge the Corporation examined Shri S. M. Arvi who was posted as Superintendent Transport and was head of the checking squad at Lucknow at the relevant time. In addition, the Corporation had produced the waybills and the counterfoils of the tickets and other documents. After considering the evidence adduced by the Corporation and the evidence produced by the petitioner, the Labour Court has found that the charge is established. We find no infirmity in the said findings recorded by the Labour Court. We are unable to agree with the view of the High Court that the case against the petitioner has not been proved to the hilt

4. Having regard to the findings that have been recorded by the Labour Court, it is evident that this is a case where the petitioner had tried to fabricate the record regarding recovery of fare to show that the passengers had travelled for a lesser distance from Khalilabad to Gorakhpur although they had actually travelled from Basti to Gorakhpur. The misconduct that was found established was thus serious in nature and the Labour Court has rightly upheld the punishment of removal from service that was imposed on the petitioner. The High Court was in error in interfering with the award of the Labour Court and in substituting the penalty of censure for removal from service on the view that there was only an attempt to cause loss of Rs 65 to the Corporation and the action of the Corporation terminating the services of the petitioner was not justified

5. The learned counsel for the petitioner has invited our attention to the decisions of this Court in Bhagat Ram v. State of H. P and Guizar Sitigh V. State of Punjab2 and has submitted that in the facts of this case the High Court was right in taking the view that the penalty of termination of services was disproportionate to the misconduct found established. We are unable to agree. The facts in the cases aforementioned were very different and they can have no application to the present case. Having regard to the misconduct that has been found established against the petitioner, it is not possible to say that the Corporation, in removing the petitioner from service, has imposed a punishment which is disproportionate to the misconduct. We are, therefore, unable to uphold the judgment of the High Court

6. The appeal is accordingly allowed, the judgment of the High Court is set aside and the award of the Labour Court is restored. No orders as to costs.