LexS.A. KINI & ANOTHER versus UNION OF INDIA & ORS.
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A B c D E F G H 754 S.A. KINI & ANOTHER v. UNION OF INDIA & ORS. April I 6, I 985 [D.A. DESAI AND 0. CHINNAPPA REDDY, JJ.] Servic1s t Empfoyeea of a Nationalised Bank/ Public Sector Corporc.tion-Whether they can collect. donations for any trust or other organisation fro!n p'ersons who comejnto contact in the course of their employment-Code of conduct. .. _/f The petitioners, Deputy General Secretary of the Canara Ban'k Offi~rs' Association and the Canara Bank Officers' Association, filed a writ petition in the High Court alleging that the Chairman and Managing Director, t~e General Manager and tb.e top. officials of the Management of Canara Bank 'have been using their official position and authority to coerce the officers and ~taff of the Canara Bank to collect funds for the Canara Bank Relief and Welf~re Society and the Kamakoti Prabba Trust and one of the principal modes of collecting funds was the sale of greeting cards by the officials of the. bank to t.heir custo- mers. They also alleged that officers, who protested against the diredtive to sell greeting cards, were victimised by the bank, and officers, who \Vere highly successful 'card-sellers' were given accelerated promotion over the beads -°!j seniors. The respondent-Bank made a statement before the High Court "that/ it has never at any time whatsoever compelled it') employees to sell greeting cards or collect funds for the Canara Bank Relief and Welfa1e Sodety or any other institution; nor has the first respondent-bank at any time considered the same as a relief factor for evaluating performance of its employees for promo- tion; nor shall the first respondent-bank do so in future." The High Court accepted the statement of the respondent-bank and dismissed the writ petition. But, the petitioners were not satisfied with the assurance given by the respondent bank and filed the present special leave petition ·and the writ petition repeating the same allegations and praying for "the issue of a writ in the nature of Man- damus directing the respondents to forbear from using the bank o(Iicials/bank machinery bankfresourccs for the purpose of collections of funds in the garb of any welfare organisation. r S. A. KINi!v. UNION While dismissing the petition and the special leave petition as malicious and as designed to denigrate the management of the bank, it was found by. the Court during the course of the hearing that the petitioners themselves were in- dulging in rash and feckless activities of the very nature of which they were Com- plaining against the respondents. Pursuant to several orders made by the Court from time to time calling for detailed information from both the parties about the activities of the Canara Bank Relief and Welfare Society and the Canara Bank Staff Officers' Association and the collections made for them and by them, it transpired that the Canara Bank. OfficcrE' Association was formed in the year 1971. On August 18, 1981 the Association started the Canara Bank Officers' Association Trust Fund registering it as a Public Trust under the Bombay Public Trust Act, 1950. Five officers of the bank who were also office bearers of the Association were made life trustees of the Association Trust Fund. Right ....... from the date of formation of the Trust, donations were collected by the ~- members of the Officer!' Agsociation from the customers of the bank. In the "short span of about twe years, the funds of the Trust have s_welled to more than Rs. twenty four Jakhs. The sowcalled donations range from sums in hundreds to thousands of rupees. The number of donors is also quite large. HELD : 1.1 While one does appreciate that there must be several chari~ table inclined persons amongst the bank's customers, there is no doubt that most of the customers that gave donations to the Trlist Fund must have felt obliged to do so because of favour received or expected to be received by them. Even if no coercive methods were employed by the members of the Association to collect donations, the customers must have felt morally pressurised i.hat otherwise their interests would not be properly taken care of or would be jeopar· dised·or neglected by the officers with whom they wer~ compelled to deal in the course of their business. [769C-D] 1.2 No employee of a nationalised bank or any other Public Sector Cor- poration should engage himself in coliecting 'donations' for any trust or other organisatio
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