The Supreme Court on Thursday has directed employees who are involved in labour disputes for giving their permanent addresses in pleadings and not the address of labour unions or authorised representatives.
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Justice Rajesh Bindal had ruled that the address of labour unions would not suffice even for service of notice.
After having discussed various labour laws and social security codes, the Court said that effective relief can be granted to a worker only if the permanent address of the workman is furnished in the pleadings
It further said that in future all the cases to be filed and in all the pending cases, the parties shall be required to furnish their permanent address(es).
The judgment came in an appeal against a 2010 division bench order of the Bombay High Court.
The division bench upheld verdicts of a single-judge and of a labour court that had directed reinstatement of the respondent with full back-wages with effect from December 1997.
The top court noted that the respondent had not furnished his address even at the labour court level.
The top Court also noticed that after the High Court order, the appellant had sent various communications by registered post to the respondent to convey the order to reinstate him but to no avail.
Further, the workman had not reported back for duty till date, even after an assurance from his counsel to the High Court in 2007.
The Apex Court noted that the same meant that the person was gainfully employed after leaving the job in question.
The appeal was thus allowed and the labour court’s award set aside.
The bench saw it to issue corrective directives. This was in view of the fact that all efforts at serving the respondent, who had given the address of the labour union instead of his address, had proved futile.
The directions given by Court were anticipation of the fact that the executive would soon enforce the four pending labour codes, which have consolidated several labour welfare legislations, namely:
1. Code on Wages, 2019;
2. Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020;
3. Industrial Relation Code, 2020;
4. Code on Social Security, 2020
The Court observed that with the enforcement of 4 Labour Codes, when rules are framed in future, the authorities will take care that parties to the dispute furnish their permanent addresses in the cases relating to labour law disputes,