HC: Employees can challenge termination in same jurisdiction

Court rejects employer’s point that termination can be challenged only at the place of transfer

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has dis - missed the contention of an employer that an employee who was terminated should contest it in the jurisdiction where he was transferred saying otherwise it would lead to exploitation of the employee.

“Such a submission if accepted could also give rise to a situation which could result in exploitation of the workman inasmuch as the employer could at its whims and fancies transfer a workman to any place in the country and contend that it is in the place of transfer that the dispute has to be raised,” the single-judge bench of Justice Suraj Govindaraj said.

The Court was hearing a petition by A Vishwanath Shetty, who worked as a medical representative of Jagsonpal Pharmaceuticals in Shimoga. He was told that the operation at Shimoga was not viable and he was permitted to take a transfer to Udupi or Madras. He was subsequently transferred to Bangalore which he did not accept. He was then transferred to New Delhi. When he did not even report to New Delhi, he was dismissed from service in 1997. The said employee approached the Labour Court against his dismissal.

The Labour Court in 2012 held that since he was transferred to Delhi, the jurisdiction was beyond Karnataka. He was ordered that the dispute had to be resolved within the jurisdiction of New Delhi. The employee approached the High Court of Karnataka with a petition in 2012 which was decided by the court recently.

Rejecting the contention of the employer, the HC said, “If the submission is accepted that the workman would only have to initiate proceedings to the place where he is transferred, the same in the present matter would give rise to chaos inasmuch as the petitioner could have filed a petition in Udupi, Madras, Bangalore or New Delhi, merely because the employer has transferred him to so many places.”

Allowing the petition and directing the Labour Court to hear the dispute on merits, the HC said, “The dispute is not as much as the transfer to a particular location but transfer from a particular location. That apart, in the present case, the dispute is as regards termination of services of the petitioner which termination in my considered opinion, occurred in Shimoga since the notice of termination which had been issued from New Delhi would be complete only on receipt thereof by the workman at the address shown in the notice which is Shimoga.”