The High Court for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday admitted a petition filed by 52 former employees of Verizon Data Services seeking reinstatement claiming that they were forced to resign. As per the petition, the company had ‘forcefully’ obtained resignations from over 200 employees on December 12 and 13, 2017.

“When the petitioners went to their office, there were huge security people both external and internal without any uniforms...there were also couple of bouncers, doctors and nurses,’’ the petition said. The employees were given a template of resignation letter and were asked to write the same on a plain paper, it claimed.

As there was no relief even after approaching the Joint Commissioner for Labour, Telangana government, the petitioners had sought a direction to the Labour Department to ensure their reinstatement and withdraw all benefits extended to the company as per IT policy since the company was ‘illegally’ retrenching the employees en mass.

The petitioners included a pregnant women employee who also lost her job. The court permitted the petitioners to serve notice to the company and posted the case to two weeks later. Reacting on the development, the Forum of IT professionals expressed its ‘happiness’ that the High Court has taken cognizance of the retrenchments in the IT industry.

Verizon spokesperson said in a statement: “If we receive any court notice, we will respond, fully complying with the requirement of the law.”

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