HYDERABAD: In a relief to Cognizant Technology Solutions Private Limited, the Telangana High Court set aside the decision of the Assistant Labour Commissioner of Vikarabad, saying that the latter has no authority to adjudicate the dispute between the IT and ITeS company and an employee who was terminated from service.
The Court held that the order passed by the authority in favour of the terminated employee is without jurisdiction as the petitioner company was not amenable to jurisdiction of the authority under the Telangana Shops and Establishments Act, 1988.
However, the Court granted liberty to the employee concerned to work out available legal remedies against his alleged illegal termination by the company. Justice P Naveen Rao passed this order recently while allowing the petition filed by Cognizant, challenging the order passed by the Assistant Labour Commissioner who directed the company to pay allowances to the employee from the date of termination till the date of order passed by the authority. As for the case, in 2013 Cognizant has terminated the services of P Appala Naidu who joined the company as manager-projects in 2011.
ITeS excluded from Shops, Establishments Act: TS HC
Aggrieved with this decision, he approached the Assistant Commissioner of Labour, Vikarabad. In 2017, the authority passed an order saying that inquiry was not properly conducted by the company and ample opportunity was not afforded to the employee to defend his case, and ordered to pay allowances. The company challenged this order in the present case.
After hearing the case and perusing the material on record, Justice Naveen Rao found that the then combined State of Andhra Pradesh had notified its IT policy in the year 2002 and resolved to exclude ITeS and IT establishments from the purview of the said Act.
In view of this exemption, the authority under the Act, has no jurisdiction to go into validity of termination of an employee working in the petitioner company. On the date of termination of service of the respondent (Appala Naidu), the authority was ousted of jurisdiction to adjudicate disputes of terminat i o n f rom ITe S / I T establishments. By way of exemption notification issued by the government, the jurisdiction of the authority was ousted, the judge noted while setting aside the decision of the authority.