Q: I was an employee of a big MNC. In April, 2010, when I was the company’s district manager, some false allegations of financial irregularity were made against me and my service was terminated. No inquiry was held. I took recourse to the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, and my case is pending before the Industrial Tribunal. The company is alleging that the reference to the tribunal is not maintainable because I was not a “workman” as per the specifications of the ID Act. Is it not for the company to prove that I was not a “workman”? Just because my designation was “district manager”, does it mean I couldn’t have been a “workman”?
Soumya Roychowdhuri
A: The definition of “workman” is in Section 2 (s) of the Act. The nomenclature of the post is not conclusive. It is the nature of duty that you used to discharge that is important. If your job was mainly managerial in nature, like taking decisions on behalf of the company, supervising other employees under you then, generally speaking, you wouldn’t fall within the definition of “workman”. It’s for the employee concerned to prove he was a “workman” and as such entitled to invoke the provisions of the ID Act, as has been held by the Supreme Court in Mukesh Tripathi’s case reported in AIR 2004, SC 4179.
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