Prashant B Ingawale
467

Dear Seniors,
Can the domestic enquiries can be clubbed together for the 02 or more persons ; would would be the disadvantages for it?
Is there any section which prohibit to club the inquiries together?
Thanks in anticipation.......

From India, Pune
Alphonse
162

Dear Friend
Please do not club the domestice enquiry. The enquiry should be conducted only based on the charge sheet. If you club 2 or more persons in the domestice enquiry it may lead to misbehave during the enquiry and they may turn the chargesheet or reasons against the management with the support of other person.
Try to conduct the enquiry individually. If not possible ask them to set as an observer and not allow to speak unnecesarily
REgards
Alphonse
9443625359

From India, Madras
VP Jain
22

Dear Prashant
You can very well clubbed the domestic inquiry for 2 or more than 2 charge sheeted workmen if the charges leveled against them are similar in nature. I practical did that long back without any legal hassle.
Rgds
VP Jain

From India, Gurgaon
akatrap
60

Dear Prashant,
You can very well club the Domestic Enquiry of 2 or more workers provided they are charge sheeted in similar charges. In my previous Organization, I have charge sheeted 14 workers in one Domestic Enquiry (it was case of Strike in our plant) They were charge sheeted for Threatening to senior, Disobedience, misbehaviour, sabotage to the property of company.
We conducted the Domestic Enquiry smoothly and later on we terminate all these workers.
Regards,
Avinash K.

From India, Mumbai
sameerparanjape
12

Dear all,
There is no specific bar to conduct common enquiry. however you have to issue separate charge-sheet to each employee as per his individual roll in the misconducts. Each worker's act may be different. In the enquiry facts come out at a later stage. Thats why it is called fact finding enquiry. You can not proceed with prejudiced mind. Recording of evidence and findings becomes very difficult. Common enquiry may be vitiated in court on various grounds. considering all this it is advisable to conduct separate enquiries.
Best regards
Sameer Paranjape ,Advocate
(Labour Law Consultant ) Pune ,
9850083760
Share knowledge ....... gain knowledge .......

From India, Pune
SATISH KUMAR DHANWAL
27

I am of the view that in case there are more than two charge sheetd employees it wud be bettr to conduct separate Enquiries . And in case you do not have Enquiry Officers you can hire the services of outsider expert. It is rightly pointed out above that they would create obstruction in the Enquiry proceedings and the E.O. will face a tough time in just managing them instead of focussing on the proceedings. Legally there is no bar to club all the charge sheeted employees and conduct enmass enquiry Proceedings. Other CS employees can always take the plea in court of law that they were not given reasonable opportunity to defend themselves. And this appears to be a legally valid ground for challenge of Enquiry proceedings before the court. Most of the EO are not trained in the conduct of enquiries. There shud a pool of EO properly educated on all aspects of the Enquiry proceedings. rarely some organisations do that. The HR deptt. shud properly briefed the EO before he is assigned this duty. And from time to time keep a track of the proceedings. so that in the end there is no loophole left in the enquiry conducted. It wud be better if a Manual is prepared for the conduct of Enquiry proceedings. This shud be kept secret and limited for the use of the EO only.
From India, Delhi
saiconsult
1899

There is no bar under law or as per the principles of natural justice to conduct a common enquiry for two or more chargsheeted employees, provided the allegations are same, the miscondcut is same and the evidence on which the allegations based is the same but the employees are served seperate chargesheets.However such common enquiries need to be conducted by people well versed with conducting such enquiries, failing which the proceedings may loose the track and discipline and may lead to confusion which may work to the advantage of the delinquent employees. For example, assuming that the chargesheeted employees engage different defence represenattives and the management witnesses are cross-examined by these different DRs in different angles, it may give rise to different versions on the same piece of evidence. Thus common enquiries are very meticulously to be conducted.Therefore it is advisable to conduct enquiries seperately.
B.Saikumar
HR & Labour Law advisor
Mumbai

From India, Mumbai
Dinesh Divekar
7883

Dear Prashant,

Lot of seniors have given their advices however, here are my two cents.

Your confusion is because your focus is on persons. Shift your focus to the incident. We order domestic enquiry to investigate the incident. Absence from work, abuse to the superiors, theft of company property etc all these are incidents that merit investigation.

In the course of enquiry, Enquiry Officer (EO) should chart out the sequence of events and go on investigating. As and when required, EO can summon required employees to depose before the enquiry and record their evidence. While investigating focus should be on:

a) What happened?

b) Where it happened

c) When it happened?

d) Who were involved in the incident? Who were internal parties? Who were external parties? Was there any agent provocateur?

e) Was there injury to the any person?

f) Was there damage to any company property?

g) Did the incident tarnish image of the company?

h) Was there any transgression of laid down rules, regulations, SOPs etc?

Ok...

Dinesh V Divekar


From India, Bangalore
Vasant Nair
90

Dear Friends,
The variety of responses that have been mentioned on this post makes it very interesting.
I have the following observations to make:
1. First and foremost the Domestic Enquiry is not a fact finding process and the EO cannot just call anyone to records his/their statements.
Domestic Enquiry is intstituted only after all facts relevant to the incidence of misconduct are collected.
2. If more than one employee is invloved in an incidence of mis-conduct, then it is best to institute separate Enquiries against each of the
concerned workers.
Yes, separate Charge Sheets will be issued to each of the concerned workers.
However, there is no bar to holding a common DE. This requires meticulous planning and only a person who is extremely skilled
in conducting DE should be entrusted the job.
Best Wishes,
Vasant Nair

From India, Mumbai
boss2966
1168

To maintain the confidentiality of the Enquiry normally it will be conducted separately. But if the Offence is committed by a team then only it will be conducted collectively. Here in this case, the Accused and the witnesses will be serially numbered and examination, interrogation, must be recorded separately and while recording the statement of one accused/witness the others should not be present in that room. Finally the Enquiring Officer will give his findings and recommendations and the same will be forwarded to the Management for approval.
From India, Kumbakonam
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