MUMBAI: Upholding termination of an employee’s services for two Facebook posts against an auto parts company, Bombay High Court quashed and set aside a labour court’s order to reinstate him.
“Freedom of speech and expression cannot be allowed to be transgressed beyond reasonableness. If that is allowed, it could lead to disastrous consequences. In a given case, one cannot and should not wait for the consequences to occur.
Such acts itself are required to be nipped in the bud. Otherwise it would convey a wrong signal to the society at large,” Justice Milind Jadhav said on Tuesday.
Pune-based Hitachi Astemo Fie Pvt Ltd had challenged the labour court’s May 31 order. Its enquiry officer held Nirajkumar Kadu, an office-bearer of the recognised union, guilty of misconduct and terminated his services on May 2, 2018 for uploading two posts in Marathi on his Facebook account against the company during an ongoing dispute in 2017 over wage settlement and negotiations had not concluded.
According to the company, several likes and comments were received in response to the February 20, 2017 Facebook posts which had gone viral. One comment read: “The workmen should adopt a militant approach with weapons and assault the officials of the company/management and only then the settlement would be concluded”.
Justice Jadhav agreed with Hitachi’s advocate K S Bapat that the posts and comments received “thereto are clearly an act of inciting hatred and passion against the management”. He said Kadu had failed to prove they were not posted by him. Kadu’s advocate Nitin Kulkarni argued that despite the posts and provocative comments received, no untoward incident had occurred and no violence took place. Justice Jadhav said evidence shows when posts were put out on Facebook, the entire situation in the company was extremely tense.
“Discipline is the hallmark of any employee/ workman when he is required to conduct himself as a workman. Regulation of behaviour of workmen is essential for peaceful conduct of industrial activity in the vicinity…also within the premises of the establishment,” he said.
Justice Jadhav did not accept that Kadu neither had a computer nor was it established that he was in the office to access the computer. “In today’s technologically advanced world, mobile phones are carried 24×7 by every person. Access to Facebook accounts is more conveniently accessed through the mobile phone,” he said. He also held that the enquiry against Kadu was “absolutely fair and proper.”
Page Source : TimesofIndia
