You have posted that:
--“I had been abruptly terminated citing "Performance Issues", without giving any further explanation.”
Before the termination has the company thru line management/HR………..issued any stinkers, show cause notice, verbal challenge, PIP etc?
--“The company owes me sales commission worth about Rs. 13 Lacs, and as per the company policy, this should have been paid along with my January salary, but wasn't.”
Do you have copy of the company’s policy, Tgt Vs Performance data?
-- “I have not received the Full& Final Settlement Statement yet, and have been following up for the same for 2 weeks now.”
Apply your rapport, goodwill with good offices and others, and exceptional levels of persuasion, persistence, reasoning, negotiation skills and ensure that FNF statement is supplied to you. You may accept it only if it is correct and reject to accept in writing if it incorrect.
--“I would also try to escalate this further up, and try to get this resolved.”
This is wise of you.
You may submit your representations, under proper acknowledgment to good o/o your appointing authority, MD, Chairman, Company Secretary…..
As you are expecting that you won’t get relief without litigation it shall be appropriate to consult a competent and experienced labor consultant/service lawyer and show copies of all documents including: standing orders of the company ( extended to your designation), appointment letter/contract of employment, KRA’s, company’s policy on sales commission, Tgt Vs performance data, appraisals with scale, appreciation letters/emails etc, awards/rewards/trophies/medals, R&R, termination order, stinkers/notice/show cause notice if any, service rules, HR policy, exit policy, severance policy, etc……… give inputs in person, and spend Quality time with your lawyer, and let your lawyer structure and draft your representations………
Designation alone does not decide if employee is a workman or not. Your lawyer may ask you a set of structured questions and may opine that you fall within the category of workman. The labor laws applicable to workman limit the choice to employer.
The employer may cry for Specific Relief Act, jurisdiction of courts, however your lawyer would know how to handle it. You can agitate at your location or location of HO-Redg. office of the company or the location of jurisdictional courts as mentioned in your appointment letter.
If IESO Act is applicable to the company, and standing orders are not certified, model standing orders shall apply.
You may also look into the SE Act, which does not indiscriminate between workman and non workman and is applicable to all employees:
e.g. SE Act of AP:
(8) employee means a person wholly or principally employed in, and in connection with, any establishment and includes an apprentice and any clerical or other staff of a factory or industrial establishment who fall outside the scope of the Factories Act, 1948; (Central Act, 63 of 1948) but does not include the husband, wife, son, daughter, father, mother, brother or sister of an employer or his partner, who is living with and depending upon such employer or partner and is not in receipt of any wages;
(23) Wages means every remuneration, whether by way of salary, allowance, or otherwise expressed in terms of money or capable of being so expressed which would, if the terms of employment, express or implied were fulfilled, be payable to an employee in respect of his employment or of work done in such employment, and includes:
(c) any additional remuneration payable under the terms of employment, whether called a bonus or by any other name;
(d) any sum which by reason of the termination of employment of the employee is payable under any law, contract or instrument which provides for the payment of such sum, whether with or without deductions, but does not provide for the time within which the payment is to be made;
47. Conditions for terminating the services of an employee, payment of service compensation for termination, retirement, resignation, disablement, etc., and payment of subsistence allowance for the period of suspension :- (1) No employer shall, without a reasonable cause terminate the service of an employee who has been in his employment continuously for a period of not less than six months without giving such employee atleast one month s notice in writing or wages in lieu thereof and in respect of an employee who has been in his employment continuously for a period of not less than one year, a service compensation amounting to fifteen days average wages for each year of continuous employment:
Provided that every termination shall be made by the employer in writing and a copy of such termination order shall be furnished to the Inspector having jurisdiction over the area within three days of such termination.
(4) Where a service compensation is payable under this section to an employee, he shall be entitled to receive his wages from the date of termination or cessation of his services until the date on which the service compensation so payable is actually paid.
---SE Act of Karnataka is also attached.
The government of Karnataka had granted blanket exemption to IT companies from provisions of IESO Act but has now made it mandatory to submit the draft standing orders within Dec2012 and get these certified within Mar2013.
---Model Standing Orders:
13. Termination of employment, 17. Liability of 17[employer].--, 18. Exhibition of standing orders.--
---THE PAYMENT OF WAGES ACT, 1936 (applicable to all employees with wage ceiling up to Rs.18000/pm):
2. Definitions.
3*[(vi) "wages" means……
(d) any sum which by reason of the termination of employment of the person employed
is payable under any law, contract or instrument which provides for the payment of such sum, whether with or without deductions, but does not provide for the time within which the payment is to be made;
---Another employee had initiated an interesting thread, and got the relief thru case filed under SE Act of AP:
At the following link;
https://www.lawyersclubindia.com/forum/Suit-claiming-damages-and-criminal-case-60347.asp#.UVa4nUpFZ_4
You may go thru it.
