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The professional claimant

 


During my labour office days, we had one complainant who would frequent our office and file claims against his employer. He would work a few days and irritate his supervisors to the extent that they would want him out. Then he would head straight to the authorities to claim he was unfairly dismissed without notice and seek indemnity in lieu of notice and balance of wages. At any one month he would have at least two claims pending at the Office for balance of wages and indemnity in lieu of notice for being dismissed summarily in breach of the terms in his contract. Often he would earn the sympathy of the Inquiring Officer who would negotiate with the employer to be sympathetic and pay the complainant what he was claiming for or what is due to him. 


His modus operandi judging from his statements revealed thar he would work for a week or so then display tardiness in reporting for work, blaming his delay on bus drivers who did not follow the usual routes or that they made unscheduled stops for a drink at a road side stall along the route. At every hearing the officers would pressure the Defendants to pay what the complainant was seeking on sympathetic grounds. Since the amount claimed was small, the defendants were easily persuaded to settle the complainant’s claim. The complainant realised he had devised a good plan to earn money without having to work and so he became a professional complainant, first visiting the various branch offices in the state and then extending to the offices in neighbouring states. 


This continued for a while until the Department arranged for an annual meeting of officers to discuss the rising number of claims and the time it was taking to settle these cases. The senior officers noted that too many cases were being postponed for the flimsiest of reasons and urged hearing officers to use better judgement before agreeing to requests for adjournments by either party. The officers also requested a monthly summary of claims that had not been settled within 3 months.


This prompted officers to take a serious view of their delayed cases. They prioritised hearing officers’ long delayed cases and re - looked requests for postponements and refused adjournments unless there were valid and justifiable reasons. This resulted in a positive note as the number of cases over three months saw a sharp decline in the coming months. 


It also resulted in the officers discovering that the complainant was abusing the system by filing claims at offices throughout the country and getting away with it. The system overhaul effectively put an end to the complainant’s career as a professional claimant.


All contents (c) Ganapathy Ramasamy, mynameisgana@blogspot.com


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