Can’t sack staff citing Covid-19: HC to AI

The Delhi high court said that “the state or its agencies cannot claim financial constraints or impact of the pandemic as a ground for dispensing the services of its employees”, quashing national carrier Air India’s decision last year of terminating 41 pilots.

A single judge bench of justice Jyoti Singh, in a 122- page judgment late on Thursday night, said: “State or its agencies under Article 12 of the Constitution cannot claim financial constraints or impact of the Pandemic as a ground for dispensing the services of its employees, in the manner adopted in the present case. State has a fiduciary duty to perform towards the citizens under Article 19(1)(g) and Article 21... and thus it becomes the bounden duty of a welfare State to secure the rights of livelihood of the citizens.”

Directing the national carrier to reinstate over 41 permanent and contractual pilots, the judge said it is the duty of the state towards securing the livelihood of the citizens and nothing has been shown on record to show that the termination of the 41 pilots would be impacting their financial crunch.

The services of the pilots were terminated last year on account of commercial slowdown in wake of the lockdown.

“The financial difficulties expressed by the Respondent (Air India) only qua the Petitioners(41 pilots) and the adamancy in resisting to take them back, only reflects malice in the action of the Respondent, which to a large extent, is substantiated by the file notings,” the court said.

“Tested on the anvil of the aforementioned principles of examining an action of a State or its Agency, this Court is compelled to conclude that the impugned action is violative of the well settled legal position and suffers from arbitrariness and unfairness and fails on the touchstone of Article 14...”