Hard days ahead

New Delhi, March 21: Employees gheraoing superiors can be sacked, the Supreme Court has ruled.

A bench of Justices N. Santosh Hegde, B.P. Singh and S.B. Sinha on Friday upheld the dismissal of a batch of employees of a Faridabad-based private company who had gheraoed their senior officer, which caused him injury.

Both the labour court and the high court of Punjab and Haryana had upheld the decision of the management to fire the employees.

Omkar Nath Mishra had filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court challenging the rulings.

But the apex bench quashed it, saying: ?Gheraoing senior officers for long hours and causing injuries to one of them was a grave misconduct that called for the stringent punishment of dismissal.?

The apex court concurred with the finding of the high court that the employees dismissed did take part in the gherao. ?Once the participation of the employees in the gherao had been conclusively proved, they would not be entitled to any relief in any manner,? the bench said.

The court also rejected an argument for reduction of punishment like cut in increments or stalling promotion and retirement benefits like gratuity.

This is not the first time the Supreme Court has dealt with indisciplined office staff with an iron hand.

The apex court has in the past month upheld the dismissals of an employee for sleeping during office hours, two others for beating up superiors and another for using ?filthy and abusive? language against a senior officer.

In these cases, the labour court and the high court were of the view that the dismissals was disproportionate to the offences and had suggested that offenders, instead of being sacked, be given minor punishments like slashing increment and withholding promotion.

But the Supreme Court set aside the recommendations.