MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court directed the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (MSEDCL) to reinstate a clerk who had been let go after a brain surgery allegedly affected his ability to work efficiently. MSEDCL has been asked to pay the clerk arrears of his salary, and the court has held that no employee can be terminated if a disability suffered during their employment has affected their ability to work.
The MSEDCL claimed that the clerk’s illness was adversely affecting the efficient functioning of the establishment and that allowed them to terminate his services. A division bench of justices MS Karnik and NR Borkar responded that such a stand contradicted section 20(1)(4) of the Disabilities Act, 2016, and letting the clerk go was against the “benevolent object” for which the Disabilities Act was enacted.
The court ordered MSEDCL to reinstate the clerk, Dnyaneshwar Kalukhe, 45, whose services had been terminated after a brain surgery affected his ability to communicate verbally.
The court also ordered the power supply company to keep the clerk on a supernumerary (additional) post, until a suitable post was available for him or he reached the age of retirement. The court has given MSEDCL four weeks to pay Kalukhe arrears of his salary, and if they fail to do so, they will have to pay back the amount at a 9% annual interest rate.
In April 2023 Kalukhe had approached the court questioning his dismissal from MSEDCL. Kalukhe told the court that he had begun working for MSEDCL as a junior clerk in August 2003. In April 2018 he suddenly felt uneasy while he was leaving his office, and was admitted to a private hospital in Satara. Kalukhe was then diagnosed with a brain disease and underwent brain surgery in a Pune hospital from where he was discharged in June 2018.
By November 2019, Kalukhe got a fitness certificate from his doctor and asked his office to let him resume his duties. However, the MSEDCL made him go through a series of medical examinations and several government hospitals, and he was certified as “fit to work light duty”. Even after the examinations, he was asked to visit the medical advisor of MSEDCL who also certified Kalukheas “fit for light duty not involving verbal communication”. Instead of letting him resume his duties, the superintendent engineer asked the standing medical board of the Government Medical College at Sangli to examine the clerk again.
In June 2022, the medical board declared him “unfit for duty due to inability to communicate with verbal commands due to cerebrovascular accident” and the MSEDCL terminated his services.
The high court condemned the MSEDCL for compelling the clerk, who had already suffered an ordeal, to go through a series of unnecessary medical examinations. The MSEDCL claimed that as per their regulations they were allowed to terminate a medically unfit employee. However, the court rejected the electricity supplier’s attempts to justify their actions and said that their regulations could not override the mandate of the Disabilities Act.