The court clarified that to qualify as a 'workman' under the Industrial Disputes Act, the claimant must demonstrate their status with credible evidence, and creative roles typically fall outside this classification.

ORDER :

Jyoti M, J.

IN WP No. 5397/2019

Sri. S.V Giridhar, counsel for the petitioner and Sri. Muralidhar Peshwa, counsel for the respondent No.1 and Additional Government Advocate for respondent Nos.2 and 3 appeared in person.

IN WP NO. 17807/2019

Sri. Muralidhar Peshwa, counsel for the petitioner and Sri. S.V Giridhar, counsel for the respondent, appeared in person.

2. For convenience's sake, the ranking of the parties shall be referred to as per their status before the Labor Court.

3. The petitioner is a Company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956. It is the country's largest private sector software company, with a workforce exceeding 4,00,000 employees operating in diverse sectors, ranging from routine banking solutions to cutting-edge Formula 1 racing technology, across various geographies and time zones worldwide. The petitioner company is recognized world over for its best human resources practices. The petitioner has several offices and establishments in the city of Bengaluru. There are various projects undertaken in diverse fields, including banking, healthcare, aviation, and others.

4. The respondent submitted his resume to seek an appointment at the petitioner's company. Before joining the petitioner's company, the respondent had a work experience of thirteen years collectively in the four different organizations namely Ashoka Leyland, TVS Motors Ltd, Forward Matrix Malaysia, and Heikal Magnetics Pvt. Ltd., and had worked in supervisory and managerial positions in the last two organisations before joining the petitioner's company. Before joining the petitioners' company, the respondent worked in managerial positions with reputed organizations. Based on his prior work experience, the respondent was hired in TCS to the post of Assistant Consultant in C3A, which is equivalent to the rank of manager in the petitioner's company, vide offer letter dated 23.11.2011 with a salary package of Rs.10,04,944/- per annum. The respondent accepted the terms and conditions of the offer letter and joined the services of the petitioner's company on 11.01.2012.

5. After joining the TCS, the respondent worked in three projects in the managerial cadre in the petitioner’s company, where he was required to perform tasks such as interacting with clients on projects and modules, functioning as a Senior Lead Member of the team, carrying out highly specialized tasks involving a considerable amount of mental input, imagination and creativity, to make decisions relating to designs, modules, and conduct review meetings with the client, customers, advising, training software engineers, etc. In addition to the above work, the respondent was also responsible for the development of new designs or improving existing designs and doing innovative work, independently handling the work, interacting with the customers, and moreover allotting the work to other subordinate team members and guiding them.

6. The senior employees in the managerial cadre are subject to review and assessment of the suitability of their skill sets for the projects undertaken by the company. This review is done by the head of the unit, in consultation with the concerned employee's superiors. After the above review, the employees whose skill sets are found not to match the requirements of the organization are put through the exit process. A detailed process has been put in place to deal with the exit process in a human