State Transport Corporation cannot maintain contrary stands on driver negligence in MACT proceedings and departmental inquiries.

The respondent, G. Gnanasekaran, was employed as a Driver with the appellant-Transport Corporation. On 16.05.2011, while driving Bus No. TN 57N 1928 on the Madurai–Kumily route, a lorry (TN 59S 0328) coming from the opposite direction dashed against the bus near T. Kallupatti Government School, causing the bus to hit a tamarind tree; several passengers were injured and one died on the spot.

The respondent lodged a complaint against the lorry driver, leading to FIR in Crime No. 160 of 2011 and a final report taken on file as C.C. No. 59 of 2012 before the Judicial Magistrate, Uthamapalayam.

Parallelly, the Corporation initiated disciplinary proceedings, found the charge of negligent driving proved, and imposed the punishment of increment cut for three years with cumulative effect.

The respondent's industrial dispute (I.D. No. 34 of 2017) was dismissed by the Labour Court, Dindigul Camp, on 18.04.2022, confirming the punishment.

On challenge, the learned Single Judge, by order dated 22.10.2025 in W.P.(MD) No. 12678 of 2022, allowed the writ petition and set aside the punishment.

The decisive ground was that the Corporation, in claim proceedings before the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal (MACT), had specifically pleaded that the accident occurred solely due to the lorry driver's negligence, a stand affirmed by the MACT, which directed the lorry's insurer to pay compensation.

In the criminal case, the Magistrate acquitted the lorry driver only because his identity was not established, as neither the respondent nor the bus conductor (P.W.2) knew his personal particulars; notably, P.W.2 deposed that the accident occurred due to the lorry driver's rash and negligent driving.

1. Whether the appellant-Corporation could sustain disciplinary punishment of negligence against its driver when it had, before the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, taken a categorical stand that the accident occurred only due to the negligence of the third-party lorry driver and not the driver.

2. Whether such contradictory stands—approbating before the MACT and reprobating in departmental proceedings—amount to an act of fraud on the Court, vitiating the disciplinary punishment.

3. Whether any infirmity existed in the order of the learned Single Judge warranting interference in the writ appeal.

The Court applied the doctrine of approbation and reprobation, which prohibits a party from "blowing hot and cold" on the same issue in different proceedings, read with the Latin maxims suggestio falsi (suggestion of falsehood) and suppressio veri (suppression of truth).

The Court placed decisive reliance on the precedent of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation v. Mahadeo Krishna Naik, (2025) 4 SCC 321, which held that a transport corporation contending before the MACT that its driver was not negligent while simultaneously punishing the driver for negligence in disciplinary proceedings amounts to an act of fraud.

The appeal was preferred under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent.

Applying the ratio in Mahadeo Krishna Naik to the undisputed factual record, the Division Bench found that the appellants had taken irreconcilably contrary positions on the very issue of the respondent's negligence: before the MACT, they contended (successfully, resulting in the insurer of the lorry being fastening liability) that the accident occurred solely due to the lorry driver's negligence, whereas in the departmental proceedings they proceeded on the footing that the respondent's negligent driving caused the accident.

The Court held that such approbation and reprobation on an identical issue has been "termed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court as an act of fraud," and that it "caused immense prejudice and was an act of fraud on the Court."

The criminal acquittal of the lorry driver did not assist the appellants, as it rested solely on failure to establish the accused's identity, while the conductor's testimony (P.W.2) in fact corroborated that the lorry driver's rash and negligent driving caused the accident.

Consequently, since the foundation of the disciplinary punishment stood vitiated by the Corporation's own mutually destructive stands, the Court found no infirmity in the learned Single Judge's reasoning or conclusion.

Finding no infirmity in the order dated 22.10.2025 of the learned Single Judge (which had set aside the punishment of increment cut for three years with cumulative effect and directed refund of the withheld amount), the writ appeal was dismissed at the stage of admission itself, with no order as to costs; the connected miscellaneous petition was closed.