Justice P. Naveen Rao of Telangana High Court has set aside an order of a Labour Court which directed an IT company to pay all allowances to one of its suspended employees, observing that he was not given opportunity to defend his case.
The judge, however, said the employee Pedda Appala Naidu, who earlier worked as project manager with Cognizant Technology Solutions, had right to seek legal remedies challenging “illegal termination” of his service. Mr. Naidu approached the Labour Court in Vikarabad following termination of his service by the company in 2013. In an order issued four years later, the court held that inquiry against him was not conducted properly. He was not given ample opportunity to defend his case either, the order said. The court also directed the company to pay allowances to the employee from the date of termination to the day the order was passed.
No jurisdiction
Challenging this order, the company moved the High Court. Announcing the verdict, the judge said the company satisfied the parameters of Information Technology/Information Technology Enabled Services as per the guidelines issued by the then government in 2002. The Labour Court or the Appellate Authority established under the Shops and Establishment Act is empowered to adjudicate disputes involving an ‘establishment’. If the establishment is exempted from the Act by any order of the government, the Labour Court or the Appellate Authority had no jurisdiction to adjudicate disputes connected to that establishment.
In Cognizant Technology Solutions case, the government had given exemption to it under Section 73 (4) of the Act since it was an IT/ITES company. Hence, any disputes relating to that company cannot be addressed by the Labour Court or Appellate Authority, the verdict said. “The decision taken by the management of an establishment exempted from the purview of the Act was not amenable for challenge before the Labour Court or the Appellate Authority,” the order said.
