No stay on closure of city-based call centre

Aurangabad: The industrial court here has passed an interim order rejecting the plea by a trade union, paving the way for the closure of Intelenet Global Services Pvt Ltd, the region’s largest domestic call centre which catered to telecom giant Vodafone.
The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) had moved the industrial court challenging the company’s decision to close down operations at Aurangabad.
Dismissing the union’s complaint, industrial court member Shridhar Kulkarni, in a ruling last week, said that prima facie, there is no evidence the company has been engaged in unfair labour practice. The court also observed that the matter has reached the Labour Commissioner where proceedings are going, and set aside the plea to stop the company’s closure.
The closure of the call centre will leave about a 1,000 people without jobs. The company had issued notices on June 20 and July 17 this year about its intention to close down the call centre by August 31. The CITU, claiming to represent the employees, moved the industrial court alleging that the company is winding up operations without following law and termed the move as unfair labour practice.
The union demanded retrenchment compensation as per provisions of Section 25 (FF) and Section 25 (FFA) of the Industrial Disputes Act. The company soon withdrew the two notices as well as its plans to wind up the company on August 31, 2017.
Advocate Yugant Ram Marlapalle, representing the management, contested that the company was running the unit by depending primarily on Vodafone as its client. However, after the call centre’s contract with Vodafone ended in March this year, the company has been compelled to shut down operations at Aurangabad. Marlapalle also pointed out that company is registered under provisions of the Shops and Establishments Act and therefore the provisions of the Industrial Dispute Act are not applicable.
The lawyer mentioned that based on the company’s compensation offer, 439 employees resigned voluntarily. Only 194 of over 1,000 employees have approached the court through the union. Also, 138 of these employees have already accepted the company’s settlement offer, Marlapalle told the court.
Between April 1 and August 31, 2017, a total of 1,034 employees have voluntarily resigned by accepting the compensation offered by the company and only 53 employees are challenging the closure. The company’s lawyer also submitted that the management is ready to deposit the compensation amount of these 53 employees in the industrial court, so that it could be paid after the final disposal of the case.