Punishment, is the penalty for transgressing the law, Jowitts Dictionary of English Law, Vol. 2 (2nd Edn. by John Burke).
Punishment, the penalty for transgressing the law: in England usually left within very wide limits to the discretion of the Court. Too great severity has frequently led to refusals of juries to convict, especially where the punishment is death, as it was down to 1810, for the offence of stealing goods to the value of forty shillings from a dwelling-house, and down to 1832 for forgery. In the former case the jury would falsely find the value of the goods stolen to be thirty-nine shillings; in the latter, a petition of bankes bastened the mitigation of a punishment which failed to protect them.
The ordinary dictionary meaning of the word 'punish' is 'to cause the offender to suffer for the offense' or 'to inflict penalty on the offender' or 'to inflict penalty for the offence'. Any action of the employer to the detriment of the workmen's interest would not be punishment so long as no offence was found to have been committed by the workman. The suspension under such circumstances, therefore, could not be a punishment even though it may be of an indefinite duration and would not attract the operation of s. 22 of the Industrial Disputes Act; Lakshmi Devi v. Sugar Mills Ltd. v. Ram Sarup, AIR 1957 SC 82 (93).
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