Big Win For IT Employees: Supreme Court Accepts Petition Against Layoffs, Salary Cuts During #Lockdown

In a big, positive development for all IT employees in India, Supreme Court has accepted to examine a very crucial petition, which aims to stop layoffs and salary cuts by IT firms.

The hearing of this petition will be on May 15th, and the verdict by Supreme Court has the potential to change several aspects related to the way IT firms are operating right now.

Supreme Court Accepts To Examine Petition Against IT Layoffs

The petition against IT layoffs was filed by National Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) and Advocate Rajesh Inamdar through Advocate-on-Record Amit Pai in the Supreme Court, last month.

Today, a bench comprising of Justices Ashok Bhushan, SK Kaul and BR Gavai heard the arguments and the logic behind this petition, and have accepted to examine it.

The petition by NITES was argued by Senior Advocate Devadatt Kamat and assisted by Advocates Rajesh Inamdar, Amit Pai and Aishwarya Rai B.

Accepting to examine a petition by Supreme Court is in itself a big win for NITES, which has been fighting for the cause of IT employees and helping them deal with the injustice melted out by the IT firms.

Reacting on this development, Harpreet Saluja, General Secretary, NITES said, “This is the first step, and we are glad that the Supreme Court and the Honorable Judges accepted to examine our petition to stop indiscriminately terminations, salary cuts of IT employees. We are sure that our efforts will eventually help IT employees, and justice will be served to them. We are very optimistic about this.”

What Is This Petition About?

Last month, NITES had filed a petition in the Supreme Court, asking them to issue strict directions against IT employers and companies, who are firing employees during the lockdown, and cutting their salaries. 

Since Govt of India has already issued several notifications and advisories for the employers not to fire employees or reduce their salaries, the recent layoffs in Pune, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and other IT hubs is a clear violation of that order.

Here are some of the companies which have fired employees and/or reduced salaries:

EBixCash, a leading forex company fired 900 employees.

Teleperformance, a France based ITeS firm has fired 100 employees in Pune

This is how Amdocs is firing employees. 150 have been asked to resign. Here is our exclusive report Amdocs firing

Capgemini is canceling leaves of employees, and notice has been issued.

Another case: Govt Issues Notice Against Wipro For Benching 300 Employees, Cutting Salaries During #Lockdown