Don’t behave like East India Company: HC tells newspaper

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Dismissing the appeal filed by the management of a newspaper challenging the orders to reinstate employees it had fired, the High Court said that it should not act like the East India Company.

“It hardly needs to be stated that they cannot act as the East India Company of the bye[1]gone era. The “hire and fire” policy of yester century has been reduced to a footnote in the history of Labour Law,” the Division Bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Krishna S Dixit said while dismissing the appeals filed by the Management of Express Publications (Madurai) Ltd, Bengaluru.

The II Additional Labour Court, Bengaluru on November 27, 2015 and the Industrial Tribunal, Bengaluru in its order dated April 28, 2017, directed the management to reinstate the workmen who had been removed from service with full back wages.

The management had challenged these orders before a single judge bench in 2016 which came to be dismissed on February 24, 2023“.

The canons of labour jurisprudence built precedent by precedent over the years requires industrial managements to conduct themselves tall and bona fide qua the workmen who happened to be a vulnerable section of society, whom the law seeks to protect,” the Division Bench said, dismissing the contention of the Management.

A total of 47 workmen were retrenched by the Management. The Management challenged the order about the payment of back wages.

It was argued, despite written requests, that the workmen did not turn back to employment and therefore it was not a case of retrenchment and no back wages were to be awarded.

However, castigating the wording of the letters issued to the workmen terminating them, the Division Bench said, “The text of the letter is not that innocuous; it tells the workman that his dues are being settled and during working hours of the office, he can collect the same.

In construing letters of this kind, one cannot keep his common sense in cold storage. The letter should be construed in its plain meaning as would be drawn by the addressee workman, who may be a stranger to the grammar school.”