WORKER TOOK BOSS TO COURT OVER OFFICE RETURN REFUSAL, REFERRED TO AFP

• Worker claimed he was unfairly sacked
• He was accused of giving 'misleading evidence' 
• READ MORE: Great-grandmother awarded $47,000 for unfair dismissal

A worker who claimed he was unfairly sacked could be referred to the AFP for allegedly giving misleading evidence while taking legal action against his boss.

Imran Karim Budhwani claimed he had been unfairly dismissed by IT multinational Infosys after he refused to return to the office after the Covid pandemic.

Mr Budhwani took the matter to the Fair Work Comission in March before his unfair dismissal application was rejected.

The FWC published its decision this week with commissioner Phillip Ryan claiming the applicant 'knowingly gave false and misleading evidence'.

'I will refer the matter to the general manager of the commission to consider whether the applicant's conduct should be the subject of a referral to the Australian Federal Police,' he said. 

Mr Budhwani was hired to look after computers, printers and scanners at Infosys' North Sydney headquarters in 2018. 

When the Covid pandemic struck, the company required anyone working in the office to be vaccinated.

FWC found that Mr Budhwani 'deliberately lied to (Infosys) by stating that he was vaccinated against Covid so that he could continue to attend the office'. 

Under cross examination, Mr Budhwani said 'he was only caught out lying about his vaccination status when he was asked to produce his vaccination certificate'.

Despite his dishonesty, the company allowed him to temporarily work from home, though this meant there were some IT support tasks he could not carry out. 

His manager, Nimshy Osman, had to do the Sydney office work that Mr Budhwani could not do remotely, and asked the human resources department in the second half of 2022 if he could return to the office. 

The Covid vaccination rule was still in place, though, so Mr Budhwani was not allowed to work from the office. 

But more than a year after that, on November 2, 2023, Mr Osman was told the policy had been relaxed and unvaccinated employees could return to the office. 

The next day, Mr Osman called Mr Budhwani and told him to return to the office the following week. 

Mr Budhwani gave various reasons around health conditions and living arrangements which he said would prevent him from returning to the office until February or March, 2024. 

He was told he had to provide a medical certificate to be allowed to continue to work remotely.

The medical certificate he provided was from a doctor in Maleny, Queensland, which was the first indication Infosys had got that Mr Budhwani was not living in NSW. 

On November 24, the company told him to return to the Sydney office from December 11 or provide evidence as to why he couldn't.

Mr Budhwani emailed to say he had a medical condition and again said he wouldn't be able to come in until February or March.

When the company told him to apply for leave and asked if he was living in Queensland, he did not reply.

A follow up email was then sent on December 8, with an auto-reply which came back saying Mr Budhwani was on leave until December 11 - but he had not booked any leave.

He then kept on changing his auto-reply to extend the leave he said he was on, without having asked for any time off. 

He continued to not respond and the company sacked him on December 21.

Mr Budhwani then 'falsely deallocated' three laptops that had been issued to him, the FWC heard.

'In this respect, the applicant's conduct was reprehensible,' the commission said.

Before the FWC proceedings last March, Mr Budhwani said a 'personal emergency' had been part of his decision to take leave, but on the first day of the hearing, he refused to answer questions about what that was.

On the second day, he said it was an eviction notice and that he had extended his leave to move out and return to work.

But he then found changed his story several times, including saying that one leave period was to spend time with a friend who had come to visit.

Mr Budhwani also said he had met some 'good friends' at an Airbnb who 'had asked him to cat-sit their house for the period of 2 March 2024 to 21 March 2024'.

His unfair dismissal application was not successful.

Read more

2024-07-03T01:52:10Z dg43tfdfdgfd