IT major Tata Consultancy Services has revoked the
termination of its woman employee in Chennai as an exceptional case since she
was pregnant. TCS, which is facing allegations of preparing to terminate
the services of 25,000 workers, said the employee had not made known to
them that she was pregnant, the company said in a press release.
"Sasi Rekha has stated in the affidavit before the
Madras High Court that she is pregnant. This fact was not made known to TCS by
Sasi Rekha during the exit process," it said.
The company said that it considered this statement made by
her, and "while disputing that employees are workmen within the Industrial
Disputes Act, decided to revoke the letter relieving Sasi Rekha, as an
exceptional case, in line with its practice of not relieving any employees
during pregnancy."
"This fact was brought to the knowledge of the court
and recording the same, the court has dismissed the writ petition as infructuous,"
the company said.
Rekha had challenged her termination in court and contended
that the retrenchment move was illegal and in gross violation of Industrial
Disputes Act, 1947. Her counsel Ramapriya Gopalakrishnan told the Economic Times
that since the employee was pregnant, the spirit of Section 12 of the Maternity
Benefits Act would have naturally applied for the employee. The section clearly
states that a pregnant woman cannot be dismissed during pregnancy, she added.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Madras High Court dismissed a
petition filed by Rekha after counsel for the software major said the firm has
revoked the termination. The termination letter to her was issued on 22
December last year. The court had on Tuesday last restrained TCS from
retrenching the analyst.
Last week the company said it does not plan to initiate any
large-scale exits but did admit that one percent of its total employees would
be fired this fiscal for non-performance or failure to specialise in a
particular domain required for its various projects.
The total involuntary attrition (terminating service) for
FY15 will be around one percent, it was 0.8 percent (2,574 employees) for the
first nine months, the company tweeted on 13 January. As the largest employer
in the IT industry, TCS currently has a whopping 3,13,757 employees, including
over 100,000 women. Freshers account for 60 percent and laterals 40 percent.
Meanwhile, taking cue from Rekha, a 36-year-old male
employee of TCS who was terminated by the company on the same day as her has
also approached the court complaining of unfair termination. The Madras High
Court will hear the case on Wednesday.
The petitioner’s counsel said that the management did not
give any notice of retrenchment as required under the Industrial Disputes Act.
Over the last one month, there has been considerable noise
about alleged mass layoffs by TCS. Social networks are abuzz with
unsubstantiated news that the company plans to send home about 25, 000
“non-performers” by the end of February 2015.
Although TCS has maintained that there is nothing
extraordinary and it’s only part of “workforce optimisation”, many
people on social networking and media forums have alleged unfair
treatment and a surreptitious plan to downsize the workforce.
As
Firstpost reported earlier, "a group of TCS
employees met the labour commissioner in Bengaluru and complained to him
about the alleged lay offs across various centres in India. According to one of
them, “first they remove you from the project, and
later will ask you to leave the company.” “Employees are asked to sign
voluntary resignation letters. We are given a one-month notice period, and are
not being given eligible compensation,” is the version of another employee. Employees who lost jobs in Kochi also echoed similar sentiments."
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