The High Court ruled that the responsibility of keeping the employer informed of his whereabouts lay squarely with the employee, warning that an employee could not seek to invalidate disciplinary action by claiming that notices had been sent to an old address which he himself had failed to update.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said that the liability for change of residence lies squarely with the employee and the employee cannot later seek legal advantage from failure to fulfill this obligation.
“The employer is not expected to communicate with the employee except at the address given by the employee. If the respondent employee changes his residence, the obligation to inform the employer of the change falls on him. He cannot be allowed to take advantage of his omission in this regard,” the court said in a ruling last week.
The ruling came in a dispute between Noida-based Rifilis Engineering Pvt Ltd and its employee Arjun Gupta, who has worked as a concrete pourer with the company since 2006.
According to the company, Gupta stopped working on May 14, 2012 without any authorization or warning. Four days later, the company sent him a notice by registered mail, demanding an explanation for his absence and warning him that disciplinary action might follow. The notice was sent to his permanent address in Bihar, which was the address given by Gupta himself at the time of his appointment.
However, Gupta claimed that he went on leave because his mother was seriously ill, that he verbally informed his boss before leaving, and that he later tried to return to work but was not allowed to do so.
The dispute eventually reached the Labor Court, which ruled in Gupta’s favor and ordered his reinstatement along with back pay and subsequent benefits. The Allahabad High Court upheld the arbitration award, stating that the employer had sent the notice to Gupta’s permanent address in Bihar instead of where he was allegedly residing in Gautam Buddh Nagar at the time in question.
The Supreme Court disagreed. The court rejected the reasoning adopted by the Supreme Court, and held that the employer could not be blamed for communicating at the only address available in its records.
The court found that Gupta did not provide any evidence to prove that he informed the company of any change of address or that his employer knew where he lived.
The ruling also found serious deficiencies in the employee’s case. The court noted that Gupta’s claim that he was forced to leave due to his mother’s illness was not supported at all by documentary evidence. Throughout the period of absence, he did not send any written communication requesting leave nor did he submit any material explaining his absence.
“If his explanation had been genuine, he could have sent a letter or other written signal. Having failed to do so, he cannot now rely solely on verbal confirmation to justify his unauthorized absence,” the statement said.
He held that the Labor Court and the Supreme Court granted the exemption despite the lack of evidence, and the Supreme Court concluded that the employee had been absent without authorization, had failed to explain his absence by any contemporaneous record, and had provided no evidence of his attempt to return to duty.
“We find that the respondent employee was absent without permission, failed to send any written communication to the employer during his absence, did not submit any documentary evidence to explain his absence, and did not submit any evidence of any attempt to return to work,” said the bench, which set aside the orders passed by the labor court in 2022 and the Allahabad High Court next year.
