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Delhi Transport Corporation vs. Hari Shankar

Writ Petition (Civil) · 2026:DHC:7890Decided 16 Sept 2026New Delhi Bench
W.P.(C) 4908/2010CNR: DLHC011089882010
Justice Amit Mahajan

Background

Hari Shankar, a DTC conductor since 1985, was accused in 1994 of intentionally reselling old, already-used bus tickets to 16 passengers and was dismissed after a departmental enquiry. The Labour Court found the enquiry itself was procedurally fair, but still set aside the dismissal, reinstating him with ₹80,000 compensation, on the ground that his cash hadn't been checked and there was some ambiguity about whether the recovered tickets were genuinely "stale." DTC challenged this reversal before the High Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Court held that absence of cash verification does not automatically undermine a finding of guilt where other credible evidence, here, a checking report bearing the conductor's own undisputed signature, recovered used tickets, and his own admission during the enquiry, supports the charge. It found the Labour Court had wrongly demanded a higher standard of proof (more akin to a criminal trial) than the "preponderance of probabilities" standard applicable to a workplace disciplinary enquiry, and that the conductor's unsubstantiated claim of being falsely implicated over a bribe refusal could not outweigh the documented evidence. The dismissal was restored, and DTC's ₹80,000 deposit was ordered returned to it.

Lesson Learnt

A workplace enquiry's finding of misconduct should not be overturned by a Labour Court simply for lacking every conceivable form of corroboration (like a cash count) if there is otherwise solid, signed, and internally consistent evidence: courts must apply the same relaxed "preponderance of probabilities" standard the law sets for departmental enquiries, not a criminal-trial standard.

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