CRUCIFIXION OF A JOURNALIST

Bangalore: The Industrial Tribunal, Karnataka, has held the dismissal of V. T. Rajshekar from the Indian Express as invalid in a judgment delivered here on Jan. 25, 1982. V. H. Upadhyaya, presiding officer of the Tribunal, in his verdict said that the Indian Express application for approval of the dismissal was dismissed with cost. V. T. Rajshekar, deputy chief reporter of the Indian Express, was chargesheet on Jan. 23, 1979 for the alleged “misconduct in subscribing articles to rival periodicals against the express prohibition and thus engaged himself outside office work”. In the domestic inquiry that followed, the enquiry officer upheld the charge and he was dismissed on April 26, 1979, by Bhagwandas Goenka, managing director. The Tribunal in its order said that the “standing order” of the Indian Express does not provide for a misconduct of the nature alleged. Further. V. T. Rajshekar had immediately replied stating that he had prior written permission of the editor-in- chief given in Sept. 1972 to contribute articles to other journals. This documentary evidence was never considered by the management. Instead, the manager of the company hurried to issue an office memo and institute an enquiry which was not a validly constituted enquiry. Even as Kuldip Nayar and the editor-in-chief Mulgeokar were seized of the matter, he was dismissed. The tribunal said enquiry officer himself seems to have “acted in a biased mind” and “appears to have gone a long way to help the management” This was obvious from the fact that he did not allow the written permission of the editor-in-chief as evidence. But, strangely enough, in his findings he has stated that it is not acceptable and the original should have been produced. Moreover, the editor-in-chief, who has given the permission to V. T. Rajshekar, was never examined. The Tribunal felt that if V. T. Rajshekar had known about the office rule not to write articles to other journals but did not have the written permission he would not have written articles in his own name printed well below the title of his articles. It is also obvious that he was not getting any regular remuneration for contributing articles and hence did not violate the normalised down in the appointment order. Further, the magazines. (Caravan. Onlooker etc.) to which he was contributing were never the rivals of the Indian Express which was a dally. In his evidence V. T. Rajshekar had mentioned names of colleagues who were also contributing to other newspapers inculding dailies and the (then) Chief Re- porter out of personal dislike and professional jealously had fabricated a case against him. The chief reporter had written a letter to the (then) news editor to “build up a case” against V. T. Rajshekar. In such a situation, it was surprising that the management never called the chief reporter as a witness. The inquiry officer played into the hands of the chief reporter and the manager. Tribunal said. “Looking at the manner in which the enquiry was conducted and the evidence adduced be- fore the inquiry officer and also the findings given by him. I have no hesitation in concluding that the enquiry officer was fully biased and the findings are perverse and not based on proper appreciation of evidence. Under such circumstances, 1 have to conclude that the decision for dismissal of the opponent (V. T. Rajshekar) taken by the Managing Director is wrong”, the Tribunal said passing severe strictures on the inquiry officer, manager of the Indian Express & the Indian Express management as a whole. The Indian Express management has since gone in. a writ appeal to the Karnataka High Court. Following the dismissal The Karmataka Dalit Action Committee, Bangalore, and many other journalist, dalit, minority, backward class, rationalist, human rights organisations in different parts of India had issued statements saying V. T. Rajshekar was made the victim of communal prejudice. His dismissal became an all-India news and dalits and minorities of Bangalore took out a protest demonstration before the Express building. Justice V. M. Tarkunde, a former judge of the Bombay High Court, after going through the domestic inquiry report said the dismissal was illega¹, MC Narsimhan, Advocate and a noted CPI trade union leader of Bangalore, appeared for V. T. Rajshekar free of charge.