Legal Reference Library

In M/s Ziqitza Health Care Ltd. vs. State of MP, a single bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court has held if the fundamental right of aggrieved party is not infringed than it is beyond the scope of judicial review under Article 226 of the Constitution to consider relief sought by the employer again. The court dismissed a petition filed by a private firm providing vehicles to 108 Emergency Ambulance Services of the State government. The government has outsourced the transportation to the petitioner private firm. Some differences cropped up between the petitioner private firm and its employees in respect of working hours, payment of wages and other service conditions led the the association of employees to give a demand letter to the petitioner. Justice Sanjay Yadav said “there exist a dispute between the employer and employees and the petitioner has already taken recourse to the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947”. “The matter is under active consideration bef...

The Bombay High Court in Mr Sanjay Sadanand Varrier v/s M/s Power Horse India Pvt.Ltd. has held that a winding up petition filed by an employee under Section 439 r/w sections 433(e) and 434 of the Companies Act, 1956, as a creditor based on the claim of recovery of his unpaid salary and wages is maintainable. A division bench of Justice SC Dharmadhikari and Justice BP Colabawalla was hearing a company petition placed before them by the Chief Justice after a single judge in this matter took a different view from the one taken by another single judge in the case of Mumbai Labour Union vs M/s Indo French Time Industries Ltd. Petitioner Sanjay Varrier contended that from October 2009 till his resignation in March 2012, the respondent company did not pay him salary. Failing to reply .to the statutory notice sent by the petitioner under S. 434 of the Companies Act, the winding up petition was filed. While the respondent company relied on the decision of a single judge of the high court i...

In Manik Lal Bhowmik Vs. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, the Calcutta High Court has held that a charge sheet issued against an employee in a disciplinary proceedings, the enquiry report and the letter of dismissal are protected by qualified proceedings, the enquiry report and the letter of dismissal are protected by qualified privilege. However, in the facts of the case two questions arise on the answer of which will depend the success or failure of this suit. Firstly, has the suit been filed within the time period specified in the Limitation Act, 1963? Secondly, assuming that the answer to the first question is in favour of the plaintiff, is the defence of absolute or qualified privilege available to the defendant? Section 3 of the Limitation Act, 1963 provides that subject to the provisions contained in Sections 4 to 24, every suit instituted, appeal preferred and application made after the prescribed period shall be dismissed, although limitation has not been set up as a defence...

High Court of Delhi Amit v. Union of India and Anr. Service Only Employer and not the Court can decide the eligibility criteria required by candidate to be satisfied for being appointed to post By present writ petition, Petitioner seeks the relief of employment with Respondent no.2/Food Corporation of India/employer to post of Assistant Grade-III (General). Petitioner was denied appointment on ground that, Petitioner only has three years diploma in Hotel Management instead of the required graduation degree of a recognized university, and which was the term of the recruitment process in terms of the advertisement. Admittedly, Petitioner does not have a graduation degree from a recognized University and he is only claiming equivalence of his Diploma in Hotel Management to a graduation degree. In any case it is for employer, and not this Court, to decide what are the specific eligibility criteria required by a candidate for being appointed to the post. In case of Sh. Mahesh Chan...

The Delhi High Court through Justice Vibhu Bakhru struck down a ‘non compete‘ clause in M/s Stellar Information Technology Private Ltd. Vs. Rakesh Kumar & Ors and decided in favour of the ex-employees who were restrained from carrying on their own business. The plaintiff is a private company engaged in the business of providing data recovery, data migration and data erasure solutions to its clients in India and abroad. They claimed that three of their former employees were stealing their confidential data, information, trade secrets and know how, and are now using the same for securing business from the plaintiff’s clients to run their own company called Techchef and contended that it was in breach of the “Confidentiality and Invention Assignment Agreement” and “Employee Confidentiality Agreement” entered into by the ex-employees with the plaintiff. Article referred: http://www.livelaw.in/guise-confidentiality-clause-employer-cant-restrain-trade-delhi-hc/

The Supreme Court in Madhya Pradesh State Road Transportation Corporation vs. Manoj Kumar & Anr. held that Voluntary Retirement Schemes (VRS) are contractual in nature and the option to opt for them constituted as an ‘invitation to offer’ and not an ‘offer’ themselves. The Bench of Justices AK Sikri and RK Agrawal also held that it is not open to the applicants to withdraw their applications after the stipulated last date. In the concerned case, the Madhya Pradesh State Road Transportation Corporation is a PSU that was running into losses hence, permission was obtained to wind it up and a VRS was introduced for the benefit of the employees. The employees could sign up for the scheme between 1st July 2005 and 1stAugust 2005 and no more options were to be accepted by the Corporation thereafter. However, vide order dated 12th October 2006 extended the date for applying up to 28th October 2006. The Court broadly relied on the two cases, namely, Bank of India & Ors. Vs. O. P. Sw...

A Three Judges Bench of the Supreme Court Avtar Singh vs. Union of India, has summarized the principles to be followed by Employers while dealing with issues related to suppression of information or submitting false information in the verification form by employees/candidates as to the question of having been criminally prosecuted, arrested or as to pendency of a criminal case. The Bench comprising of Justices Ranjan Gogoi, Arun Mishra and Prafulla C. Pant, observed: “The ‘McCarthyism’ is antithesis to constitutional goal, chance of reformation has to be afforded to young offenders in suitable cases, interplay of reformative theory cannot be ruled out in toto nor can be generally applied but is one of the factors to be taken into consideration while exercising the power for cancelling candidature or discharging an employee from service.” Referring to various decisions, the Bench answered the reference to it, as follows. * Information given to the employer by a candidate as to convictio...

Calcutta High Court has recently held that a person is not entitled to back wages for the period during which he was out of service due to dismissal from service by reason of his conviction under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code and subsequent reinstatement in service upon his acquittal by the Appellate Court. In this Case the Petitioner was an employee of Food Corporation of India. FCI had dismissed him from Service on his conviction U/S 498A IPC, invoking the provision of Regulation 63(1) of the Food Corporation of India (Staff) Regulations, 1971. Subsequently, petitioner was found not guilty of the charge under Section 498A of the IPC by the Appellate Court. By an order dated 14 January, 2013, the petitioner was reinstated in service. It was stated in the said order that the period of the petitioner’s absence in service from the date of dismissal till the date of reinstatement will be treated as non-duty for all purposes and for that period he will not be entitled to any back w...

No compassion can be shown to a person who has no will to work, the Delhi High Court has observed while upholding a termination order against a clerk of District Court who was accused of absenting herself from duty frequently. One Suman Taneja, who was working as Lower Division Clerk in the office of District Court had approached the Delhi High Court against the termination order passed against her. Perusing the records, the Court observed that the petitioner was not performing her duties with due diligence and she was found guilty of taking unauthorized leaves and she has failed to show that the leaves that were taken by her were sanctioned by the respondents. Thus, it is clear that the petitioner has decided at her own will when to take leave and when to report for duty, Justice Ved Prakash Vaish said. Even after issuance of repeated Memos, the petitioner neither report back to duty nor submitted anysatisfactory explanation for her absence, which shows that she was absolutely incorri...