No malafides found: Employee fired for negligence

S Shyam Prasad | NT

Bengaluru: No malafides can be alleged on the employer because he removed an employee for delinquency of duty as 19 years have passed since the former’s land was acquired for the factory, the High Court has said. Yenkappa’s land was acquired for the Rajashree Cements Factory in Gulbarga.

He was given a job in lieu of the loss of his ownership of land in 1991. In 2010, he was removed from the job as he was unauthorized absent for 89 days.

The employee alleged that he was removed from the job because the company wanted to avoid the obligation of giving him employment in return for his land.

The High Court however dismissed this contention. The bench of Justice Suraj Govindaraj in its judgement said that “Though the contention is raised that the employment of the workman was in lieu of land acquired and that the services of the workman could not be terminated, a perusal of the documents indicates that the acquisition having occurred long ago, the petitioner was employed in the year 1991 and it is only in the year 2010 after 19 years of service, that the termination occurred.”

Therefore, the Court said, “It cannot be said that the termination of the series of the petitioner is in order to get over the obligation agreed upon after acquisition. Further more, no malafides can be imputed on the employer after a period of 19 years of service.”

Yenkappa was employed as a mechanic labour in the cement factory. He had lost his land to the factory and was given a job in lieu of it in 1991. In 2010 a charge came to be issued against him for absenting from work for 89 days without permission.

His reply not being acceptable, an enquiry officer was appointed who reported that Yenkappa was guilty of delinquency.

On the basis of this report, the disciplinary authority of the factory dismissed him from service. Yenkappa raised an industrial dispute before the Labour Corut in Gulbarga.

The Labour Court in its award on June 12, 2012 dismissed his petition. Yenkappa challenged this order in the High Court in 2012. The HC gave its judgement on this petition recently.

His advocate argued that Yenkappa “being a land owner having lost the land, there was a promise of a job to be offered to the petitioner. The respondent over a period of time, having promised such jobs to similarly situated persons, has sought to get rid of them by one means or the other and by raising false issues and making false charges have dismissed all those land owners from service.”

The HC however noticed that Yenkappa was unauthorized absent from work on 71 earlier occasions as well. It found the dismissal order against him to be valid.

“The manner in which the various defences have been raised and the allegations made would also indicate the continued defaults on the part of the workman making the punishment awarded proportionate,” the HC said.

However, the court ordered the company to pay him a subsistence allowance. “The punishment of dismissal is no interfered with. However, the employer is directed to make payment of subsistence allowance from the date of dismissal till the date of the award passed by the Labour Court within a period of eight weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order,” the HC said disposing the petition. (WP 86400/2012)