Tech Mahindra gets HC notice for illegal layoffs amid HR audio clip fiasco

Tech Mahindra is in the news again, this time over notices issued by the Hyderabad High Court to the state of Telangana, the state's labour department, and the information technology (IT) major directing them to respond to the alleged unlawful retrenchments of software engineers employed by the firm. The development was reported by the Times of India on Tuesday.

The legal notice comes in the back drop of the recent controversy at the IT major over a taped conversation between its human resource  (HR) management staff and an employee who was handed the pink slip.

According to the national daily, Justice M S Ramachandra Rao gave the parties three weeks to file their replies to the allegations raised in a writ petition filed by four retrenched Tech Mahindra employees.

Tech Mahindra's management faces allegations of large-scale and illegal retrenchment of its employees in Hyderabad, the report said, citing the submission made by the counsel for the retrenched employees before the court.

The petitioners, the report added, had approached the labour commissioner under whose jurisdiction Tech Mahindra falls. Subsequently, the department set in motion a conciliation process. However, the company went ahead and terminated the petitioners' employment even as the process was underway.

While Tech Mahindra is not the only IT major handing out pink slips in large numbers, a recently leaked audio clip has left it with a weak hand.