Observing that labour disputes take quarter a century to be concluded from Tribunal to the High Court level, the Madras High Court asked officials to deal with labour matters cautiously. Many of the issues deal with the lives of the employees, and in some cases, on account of wrong issue being referred, employers have to pay for no fault of theirs, it added.
Madras High Court (File Pic)
Chennai:
Justice S Vaidyanathan made the observation while passing orders on a plea moved on behalf of 14 former employees of State Bank of Mysore, who had raised a dispute regarding their regularisation, which was erroneously referred by the government as one of non-employment.
Slamming the government’s approach as perfunctory, the court pointed out that the matter has been pending since 2016 due to the erroneous reference.
“When there is a wrong reference, this court is empowered to direct the government to issue a correct reference by issuing a corrigendum,” the court held. In order to avoid further litigation, the court directed the Industrial Tribunal to take up the dispute and proceed without adjourning the matter beyond seven working days at any point of time and bring the issue to a logical end.
The government was expected to act swiftly regarding issuance of corrigendum within the stipulated time, said the judge, adding that officials dealing with labour matters were expected to deal with it cautiously.
Citing his experience of dealing with a writ petition of 2002 that was pending for more than 28 years, Justice Vaidyanathan noted that even though the labour law says it is meant for speedy disposal, it moves in a snail’s pace. The employees are going to leave the legacy of litigation to their legal heirs /future generations, he added.
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