The 2011 year has again been a year of reinforcing positive discipline in the organised sector as far as judicial pronouncements influencing employer-employee relations are concerned.
Our labour laws have not changed but  the judiciary has provided a broad, liberal and expansive interpretation of various labour enactments. A number of doubts, disputes and reservations on the actual scope, content and application of various laws have been removed.
As the time is changed, so the judicial thought process. Both Industry and the Trade Unions have been called upon to subsume their vested interests  in the larger interest of country economy. Slowly-slowly it has been established that courts are not going to interfere with the decisions of the employer where the incidents of indiscipline are concerned.
In this year too there have been many judgments from the High Courts and Supreme Court be it on contract labour, industrial disputes, unfair labour practices, dismissals, sexual harassment and disciplinary proceedings, where fine balance between accountability and discipline has been reinforced.  The year ended with the Supreme Court comments in the Siemens case that courts must consider the vast changes in economic and industrial scenario and the new challenges being faced by the company in the matter of re-organisation of its work culture. Companies should not  be prevented from re-arranging their businesses. 
Courts also came down heavily on  the employees who were found involved in the matters of dishonesty and misappropriation of public money. Supreme court in the case of Panchmahal Vadodra Gramin Bank has said that the employee could not escape the penalty of dismissal where the findings of the inquiry officer has been upheld by the court and charges relates to dishonesty and lack of probity. SC also deplored the malpractices being adopted by employer to subterfuge the Contract Labour System.
BM research team has examined thousands of pages of judgments of various High Courts and Supreme Court delivered and reported in various journals during the year and selected about 600 important judgments. The complex law and principles laid down in the pronouncements are captured  in few lines in simple to understand language.

 

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Anil Kaushik
Chief Editor,Business Manager-HR magazine
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