PRESIDENT, HUMAN RESOURCE Vs. LATHA GOVINDASAMY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two Writ Petitions assail the award of the Labour Court dtd. 14/12/2020 made in O.P.No.6 of 2019, in as much the award partly allowed the claim petition and directed reinstatement of the employee Latha Govindasamy with continuity of service with 50% of back wages and all other attendant benefits.

(2.) The factual background in which these Writ Petitions arise are that the employee raised a dispute about the non employment before the Assistant Labour Commissioner III - Conciliation, Kuralagam, Chennai and the conciliation did not yield any settlement and resulted in a failure report dtd. 28/1/2018. Thereafter, a claim petition was filed under Sec. 2 A(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, which was taken on file as ID No.6 of 2019.

(3.) Mr.Anand Gopalan, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the management would submit that the employee has risen to the higher level in the hierarchy. The role of the Associate Consultant is equivalent to that of the Manager. When she was being in the organisation without any work and it was her duty to find any suitable projects and get continuous employment. She chose to remain idle and drawn salary. Even then, the management kept on paying her salary without extracting any work for about two years. It must be seen that by virtue of her position she handled leave request, recommended for sanction or refusal of the leave pertains to the employees under her control and Ex.M3 is filed before the Labour Court to prove the same. It must be noted that Ex.M6 was returned even on 16/4/2020 informing the employee that her performance is not in line with the organisations expectation. Ex.M7 is filed in proof of the employee acting as an appraiser and also as reviewer to assess the performance of the other persons working under her in the company, certainly would demonstrate that she was in the managerial cadre. In any event, the work done by her is supervisory in nature. She has performed both the roles of appraiser and also reviewer, and her recommendations weighed with the management in granting increment, salary or even retaining the other employees for work. Thus it must be seen that she is very much part of the management. Even otherwise in the promoted role of the Associate Consultant Manager, the predominant duties that are pleaded by the management is mentoring, allocation of projects, supervision of the day-to-day activities, etc. and therefore, it must be seen that the role of the employee is predominantly supervisory and managerial in nature and when she was drawing the salary of Rs.97,000.00 per month, it cannot be held that she is only a Workman. When this Court further requested about filing of the organisational structure, the learned counsel would also filed an additional affidavit whereby it is stated that hierarchy wise it starts with grade Y Trainee, C1Y- Assistant System Engineer, C1 Executive, C2 Assistant Manager, C3A Manager and C3B Senior Manager.