Maintaining Industrial Discipline

Industrial discipline is critical to the productivity of any enterprise. Employees in India enjoy not only statutory protection under various laws but also constitutional guarantees. As a consequence, efforts to curb both mass indiscipline and individual misconduct have floundered, particularly as Indian courts tend to favour the employee. The remedy, says the author of this timely and lucid book, is to properly understand existing laws governing disciplinary action as also the correct procedures that need to be observed.

Dr Das Gupta covers all the various aspects of disciplinary action relating to dismissal, discharge or removal of employees and provides the latest judgements and interpretation of case law on the subject. Including numerous cases, the book gives examples of the formats for a chargesheet, notice of enquiry and letter of dismissal among others. A unique feature of this compact book is that it provides answers to 50 Frequently Asked Questions relating to industrial discipline.

Key issues discussed include:

• What constitutes misconduct

• The concept of natural justice

• Procedures of an enquiry

• Rights of the employer to terminate the services of an employee

• Rules and regulations relating to discipline and conduct

• Pitfalls in disciplinary action and their remedies

An important feature of the book is that the author adopts a step-by-step approach explaining not only ‘what’ is to be done but ‘why’. This makes it immensely useful for new entrants into the field, while being of equal value to practising personnel managers. It will also be enormously useful for lawyers, trade union activists and students of personnel management and industrial relations.