SpiceJet Ordered By HC To Rehire Employees Retrenched Amid Covid-19 Pandemic
Bombay High Court orders SpiceJet to renew the contract of the employees who were laid off during COVID-19 pandemic, citing lack of work.
SpiceJet is instructed by the Bombay High Court on 3rd May to rehire its employees, who were laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The members of the Employees Association and Indian Spice Jet workforce had not been axed out in accordance with the Industrial Disputes Act (IDA).
As a consequence, on 10th January 2022, the Presiding Officer of the Central Government Industrial Tribunal -2 (CGIT-2) Mumbai had passed an order directing SpiceJet to extend the contract of its staff.
The low-cost carrier sent a petition to the High Court challenging the interim order from CGIT-2.
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The service contracts of a number of SpiceJet employees had lapsed on 31st December 2021. However, the pandemic disrupted the daily flight services of the airlines from 144 to 44.
Therefore, SpiceJet claimed before HC that the airlines could not renew the contract of its ground handling workers because of the work deficit.
The Airport Authority of India (AAI) had entrusted the work of the concerned employees to an agency, in accord with the resource efficiency drive of SpiceJet after Covid-19 stuck globally.
Nevertheless, the tribunal ran through the data and found that the 463 employees who were sacked did not have any case of misconduct during their service. This prompted the governing body to pass the order to SpiceJet to bring back their employees.
The advocates of the India-based Airlines argued that the SpiceJet members were put on the payroll on a Fixed Term Contract basis, and their contract was completed on 31st December 2021.
The Airlines chose not to recommence the employment contract, but that did not signify the discontinuance of its employee enrollment.
All the workforce engaged with the airlines had been working with them for several years. Thus, it invalidated the statement given by SpiceJet that the exclusion clause (bb) of Section 2 (oo) of the 1947 Act had been applied on its employee base.
SpiceJet even made a claim that the contract had to be renewed for 371 employees only as 120 among them had already stepped down. Whereas, the Trade Union asserted that hardly 74 of the workforce had resigned.
Justice NJ Jamadar had been the single judge to hear the plea of the Ajay Singh, the Managing Director and Chairman of SpiceJet Ltd. The bench of advocates included Niraj Prajapati, Kiran Bapat and Mahesh Shukla.
The Senior Advocate of the Employee’s Union, Sanjay Sanghvi, maintained that as an interim agreement the company should provide employment to the 463 employees as no allegations of misconduct was found against them as mentioned under the IDA.
India’s second largest airline company, henceforth, brought back only 60 of their retrenched staff.
The judicial bench, after the court hearing, came to a conclusion that the employee sacking is counted as a loss for the breadwinners, as the decision pursued without proper adjudication from the Tribunal.
It was also highlighted that SpiceJet disregarded its undertaking to the Tribunal which stated that employee services would not be terminated.
Hence, on part of their non-adherence of their status quo extending up to 4th January 2022, the retrenched employees, on non-renewal of their contract with SpiceJet, were entitled to interim relief.
The High Court bench of Justice pronounced that by 31st May 2023, the remaining number of employees should inform the Airlines directly or through the Employee’s Union of their decision to continue their tenure with SpiceJet.
Nevertheless, it is quite uncertain how many of the slashed manpower would resume their working with the Airlines in the event of the petition against SpiceJet.
In the same lines, the Royal Airways-promoted SpiceJet is ordered to provide employment and settle the benefits and pay wages as per the terms of employment existing until 31st December 2021 by the end of June month.
Connecting all the dots of the case together, the Bombay High Court turned down the plea of SpiceJet in challenge to the decree passed by CGIT-2, and ordered them to turn the tables in favor of the retrenched employees.
Proofread, Edited & Published By Naveenika Chauhan
