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In what is believed to be one of the largest compensation settlements for the UK’s Royal Mail, an Indian-origin employee has been awarded more than 2.3 million pounds after her bullying claim was upheld.
Kam Jhuti had claimed before an employment tribunal dating back nearly eight years that she had been intimidated and harassed by her boss after she raised concerns that a colleague had secured their bonus illegitimately. The tribunal went on to find that there had been a “catastrophic” impact on her over her boss’ treatment of her, ‘The Daily Telegraph’ reports.
“The tribunal makes a total award of GBP 2,365,614.13, payable by the respondent to the claimant,” reads an official remedy decision added to the long-running case this week. “Subject to the paragraph below, payment of the award is stayed pending the outcome of the respondent’s (Royal Mail) appeal against the tribunal’s original judgment on remedies which was sent to the parties on October 3, 2022. Both parties have the liberty to apply to lift this stay,” it reads.
“Of that total award, the respondent (Royal Mail) will, however, make payment of the sum of 250,000 pounds gross to the claimant; the stay does not, therefore, apply in relation to this sum. The parties agreed that the respondent will pay this sum to the claimant within 14 days of the date of this hearing,” it adds.
Earlier, the tribunal had concluded that the postal service had been “high-handed, malicious, insulting and oppressive” in how it had conducted the case. A 2019 Supreme Court hearing was told that Jhuti started work as a 50,000 pounds per year media specialist at the Royal Mail’s MarketReach unit based in London in September 2013.
However, the following month, while shadowing a colleague, she began to suspect they were not following watchdog Ofcom’s guidance and also breaching the company’s policy in relation to bonuses known as Tailor-Made Incentives (TMIs), which she said helped the colleague to hit performance targets and directly securing a bonus for herself and “in effect defrauding the company”, the newspaper reports.
Later that month, a TMI expert in the business confirmed Jhuti’s previous allegations had been correct by acknowledging that media specialists were offering TMIs “inappropriately”.
As the process unfolded, Jhuti began suffering from stress and went on to express concern over her boss’s conduct. She was granted a new line manager but was told she was not making the expected progress and in March 2014 was signed off with work-related stress, anxiety and depression, and never returned to work. After taking Royal Mail to an initial employment tribunal in 2015, Jhuti’s claims of unfair dismissal proceeded after the Supreme Court ruled in her favour.
As an appeal is pending in the case, the Royal Mail is expected to only make a payment of 250,000 pounds from the total compensation amount at this stage.
