The Delhi High Court has held that the employer-employee relationship cannot be construed between the Company and a freelancer merely on the basis of the emails and form-16A.
Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma was considering a writ petition moved by the petitioner workman, Mr. Kaushal Kishor Singh impugning and seeking to set aside the order dated 07.06.2018 passed by Sh. Lokesh Kumar Sharma, Presiding Officer, Labour Court XIX, Dwarka Courts whereby the Labour Court held that the workman has failed to establish the existence of an employer-employee relationship and therefore the question of illegal or unjustifiable termination did not arise and dismissed the statement of claim of the workman for being devoid of any merits.
The Court held that “Freelancer or freelancing thus are terms currently used to mean a person who is self-employed or an independent contractor in the business of selling their services and skills to different employers for a specified time period. Etymologically, freelance has derived from the words – “Free” a Germanic word that means to “love,” and “lance” which is akin to the French word meaning to “launch”, or discharge with force.”
Dismissing the petition, the Court held that “a bare perusal of the documents filed as evidence on behalf of the petitioner workman, which includes the various emails and the forms under 16A, do not, in any way, prove that there existed any relationship of employer-employee between the parties. The emails show mere correspondence and the Form 16A categorically reflects that TDS was deducted by the Management in respect of payments made to the petitioner under the „head of payments made to contractors and sub-contractors‟, thereby disqualifying the petitioner to fall within the definition of workman as enumerated under Section 2(s) of ID Act.”
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