HC rejects employee’s plea

NMR staff cannot insist on a procedure

The Hyderabad High Court has ruled that a full-fledged enquiry that is required in the case of a regular employee may not be necessary while dealing with an NMR employee.

A division bench comprising Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar and Justice Anis, while dismissing a batch of petitions by V.V.R.K. Srinivas and other NMR employees of Sri Durga Malleswara Swamy Vari Devasthanam at Vijayawada, observed that as long as sufficient opportunity of hearing is given to an NMR employee, he cannot insist upon the procedure applicable to a regular employee being adopted in his case.

The petitioners challenged their disengagement of service on the ground of misappropriation and terminating their services without a fullfledge inquiry.

Earlier in one such case a single judge held that even in the case of a NMR employee, if the order of termination was not simpliciter, but had penal consequences and attached a stigma, it could not be passed without following the basic principles.

When the case of Srinivas came up before another single judge he was not inclined to agree with this view and referred the matter for consideration by a division bench.

The bench said that “the broader issue that therefore falls for consideration before us is whether the principles of natural justice have to be followed while dispensing with the services of an NMR worker/employee when such dispensation is stigmatic and if so, the extent to which the principles of natural justice have to be adhered to.”

The bench observed that “merely because a worker or employee is either casual or not borne out on the muster rolls, it would not give the employer the freedom to pass a stigmatic order against him without following the rule of audi alteram partem. It is a settled tenet of jurisprudence that no man can be condemned unheard.”

The bench said “it is equally well settled that the principles of natural justice cannot be straitjacketed or cast in iron-clad terms.”