Sanjay Kumar vs Life Insurance Corporation of India and Another

Valmiki J Mehta, J.—By this writ petition, the petitioner who was terminated from services of respondent No. 1 Life Insurance Corporation of India during the probationary period, seeks the relief of quashing the orders refusing to extend the probation period and thereby terminating his services. The impugned orders are dated 16.12.2008 and 2.1.2010. The facts of the case are that the petitioner was appointed as an Apprentice Development Officer by the respondent No. 1 as per the appointment letter dated 17.12.2007. Paras 2 and: 10 of the said appointment letter read as under:-

PROBATIONARY PERIOD:

You shall be on probation initially for a period of twelve months from the date of your joining duties as a probationer, but the Corporation may, in its sole discretion, extend your probationary period, provided that the total probationary period including the extended probationary period shall not exceed 24 months counted from the commencement of the probationary appointment. During the probationary period (which includes extended probationary period, if applicable) you shall be liable to be discharged from the services of the Corporation without any notice and without any cause being assigned.

MINIMUM BUSINESS:

i) During the probationary period you shall secure through the agents recruited at your instance minimum completed life business of Rs. 3.5 acres yielding a Scheduled First Year Premium Income of not less than Rs. 10:00 lacs provided, however, that in case the pay and/or allowance admissible to you, under Clause I are increased during the period, the minimum business and the premium income which you should secure shall be increased proportionately.

ii) The minimum business set out in (i) shall be spread over not less than 550 lives and shall be secured regularly through a network of dependable agencies.

iii) You will be required to recruit minimum of 35 agents out of which 35 agents should have become active, 35 agents should individually have put in during that period the minimum business required of them in an agency year according to Rule (9) of the LIC of India (Agents) Rules, 1972 and 15 agents should become Productive agents i.e. one who has completed either at least 20 lives or 12 lives with Scheduled First Year Premium Income of Rs. 1,00,000 in the agency year.

iv) If your probationary period is extended, you shall secure during the extended period such business as may be intimated to you.

As per the respondent No 1, the petitioner did not bring-in the necessary minimum business as per para 10 of the appointment letter and therefore the probationary period of petitioner was not extended and his services were terminated.

The respondent No. 1 has given the following chart with respect to various personnel, some of whom were confirmed and others terminated, and petitioner is found at serial No. 16 of this chart:-

Manager(Sales)

Delhi Do-II

A reading of the aforesaid chart shows that indubitably the petitioner failed to comply with the requirement of bringing in business as per clause 10 of his appointment letter. The petitioner was below the mark whereas 15 other persons achieved the necessary business for the respondent No. 1-corporation and therefore their probationary periods were extended and they were subsequently confirmed. The petitioner as also two other persons, namely, Sh. M.S. Brijwal and Sh. Gajendra Singh were terminated from services during the probationary period on account of failure to bring in the requisite business.

The contention of the petitioner that he has been discriminated as against other persons who did not bring in the necessary business but were confirmed is therefore incorrect in view of the chart reproduced hereinabove.

It is settled law that it is not necessary that a probationer has to be confirmed to his services. In fact, in the present case, the decision taken by the respondent No. 1 is not a subjective decision but an objective decision based on performance parameters and therefore the probation of the petitioner was not extended alongwith two others, whereas 15 other persons were given extensions and thereafter confirmed by the respondents. In view of the above, there is no merit in (sic) petition which is accordingly dismissed, (sic) the parties to bear their own costs.