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Star drags former executive to court

BS Corporate Bureau in New Delhi

When Star India's executive vice-president (advertising sales) L S Nayak put in his papers (having put in 9 years in the company), little did he know he was inviting trouble.

His employer Star India has dragged him to the court in Mumbai for breach of employment contract.

An increasing number of high-profile corporate executives are finding themselves at the receiving end after leaving a company.

Experts say this is because of the increased competitive pressure on companies. Nayak's is the latest case.

Though both Nayak and Star India CEO Peter Mukherjea have refused to comment on the issue as the matter is subjudice, media industry sources say Nayak was among the top few (the others were Peter Mukherjea, Samir Nair and the Star's chief financial official) who were made to sign a three year employment contract last year. As per the contract Nayak was supposed to serve the company till 2004.

Though the details of the employment contract are not available, one of the clauses apparently forbids him for working in any other television and cable company.

Sources say Nayak quit Star India in September and joined the Prannoy Roy-owned NDTV to look after the sales and marketing of its soon-to-be launched news channels.

Ex-Escotel head honcho Manoj Kohli met with a similar fate. When he quit the company recently, Escorts took him to court on the grounds of breach of employment contract which said that he could not join a rival for a period of three years after leaving the company.

As Kohli had signed up with Bharti, which is in the cellular telephony business like Escotel, his ex-employer promptly moved the courts against him.

In another similar case, Hindi news channel Aaj Tak sued its former news reader Alka Saxena.

When Saxena quit Aaj Tak to join rival Zee News, her earlier contract prevented her from anchoring programmes for Zee for six months.

However, Zee could not help but use her skills during an important political event: Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf's India visit. Aaj Tak promptly sued her for appearing on screen in violation of her contract.

However, after several hearings the case was "dismissed as withdrawn". In simple words, the court gave Aaj Tak the opportunity to withdraw otherwise it may have passed strictures against the media company.

According to sources, basically Alka Saxena's right to do what she knows best was upheld. The Aaj Tak contract was seen as being one-sided.

Some time back, Vasanth Nangia quit Titan's jewellery division (now called Tanishq), along with five other top-ranking officials, to start Oyzterbay, a similar venture.

Titan filed a case against Nangia alleging violation of a declaration of allegiance which Nangia had signed in 1997.

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