The Madras High Court Bench here has ruled that employers bound by the Industrial Disputes Act 1947 should pay full wages to dismissed workers during pendency of their writ petitions in higher courts challenging labour court/tribunal's refusal to approve the dismissal. Justice R S Ramanathan,allowing a petition by a dismissed employee of Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC),said the words in Sec 17B of the Act,being a welfare legislation,should be given a liberal interpretation. "The Section says employers have to pay full wages inclusive of maintenance allowance pending adjudication of cases filed by them,either in the High Court or Supreme Court,challenging an award passed by a labour court/tribunal or national tribunal reinstating (sacked) employee." The TNSTC counsel argued the benefit could be given only when a labour court had ordered reinstatement and not when it had merely refused to approve the dismissal of an employee. The petitioner contended lack of approval by a competent authority would make dismissal null and void. Hence the worker could not be left without any emoluments until the employer took the case to Supreme Court which might take a few years. It was open to TNSTC,in this case,to even re-employ the petitioner instead of giving him wages without extracting work,the judge said. P Ganesan was dismissed from service on May 23,2005 for allegedly producing bogus certificates and in January 2007 the Labour department had rejected an application seeking to approve his dismissal.
