Court seeks punitive action against FCI officials for ‘defying’ labour court order

Bhopal/Jabalpur: The Madhya Pradesh high court has strongly criticised certain Food Corporation of India (FCI) officials for attempting to render a labour court order ineffective through a departmental order and directed the corporation to take substantive punitive action against them.

A division bench of Justice G S Ahluwalia and Justice Deepak Khot, while hearing the FCI’s petition against the labour court order that mandated regularisation of two employees Arjun Patel and Abdul Khalid Danish from Jabalpur, observed that FCI officials issued a departmental order to make the judgement ineffective instead of challenging it at the appropriate legal forum immediately.

The vacation bench said the punitive action should not be symbolic like issuing a show cause notice but must be substantial. After FCI counsel sought time, the court granted the corporation three weeks to fix accountability and take action against the concerned officials.

The judges emphasised that if anyone in FCI objected to the labour court order, it should have been challenged through available legal channels rather than attempting to subvert the course of justice through a departmental order. Citing Supreme Court precedents, the court stated that the institution must fix responsibility on officials as such attitude leads to unnecessary litigation, wasting public funds and precious court time.

The court will examine during the next hearing what action was taken against the officials and whether accountability was properly fixed.