RE: Legal Opinion on L&T Switchgear and Other Stories

Dear HRS :

Congrats !  And , no doubt , you are luckier than I was some 10 years back !

You are aware of those 170 + odd " Letters to L&T Employees " , which I had sent out to our 7500 + colleagues ( mostly in Powai ) , during 1979-87

Subsequently , many HR managers , who read these , suggested that I bring these out as a BOOK , as these vividly illustrated efforts of L&T managers to improve Industrial Relations climate

I put these together ( as a manuscript ) , drafted a " Forward " by A M Naik , and sent it to him , seeking L&T's permission to go ahead and publish it

He rejected my request !

Reason ?

It contained " discussions / exchanges " between L&T employees , which was a " Privileged Communication " and cannot be permitted for publication  !

I am still preserving that letter from AMN  !

regards,

hcp

From: Haridas Shenoy [mailto:hrshenoy1941@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, June 25, 2016 9:42 AM
To: Girish Trivedi; Hemen Parekh; AG Kale; AG Patkar; AK Ganguly; Alok Rastogi; Anand Ashay; Anand Pasarkar; Anil Choudhari; Arun Khandekar; Arun Kumta; Ashok Sanil; Atul Shah; AV Shenoy; AY Divekar; B Ramachandran; BB Singh; Bipin Shah; BJ Desai; BVRM Murty; CG Karamchandani; CR Mistry; Dilip Bhanage; Dinesh Shah; G Ramakrishna; Gajanan Phadke; Guha Thakurtha; Gurudatt Kundapurkar; HR Khona; HT Mehta; John Monteiro; K Narsaiah; K Rajendran; KA Shaikh; KM Raja Sundaram; KR Iyer; KR Patel; KS Ranganathan; Luis Vas; M Subramaniam; Madan Mandlekar; MD Palekar; MD Phatak; Milind Rajopadhye; MJ Paleja; MK Kaushik; MR Madnani; MVL Narasimhan; N Ramachandran; NM Kudalkar; NV Srinivasan; PCS Ratnam; PD Desai; PD Joshi; PG Pande; PH Sakhalkar; PJ Pathak; PL Negandhi; Pradeep Talpade; Prakash Shrungarkar; PS Moharir; R Shivaji; R Sivaraman; RA Panchal; Raj Kumar Seth; Rajat Desai; Ramesh Aggarwal; Ramesh Somai; RD Kulkarni; RI Mehta; Rita Rahimtoola; RM Yajurvedi; Rukmini Bhandary; S Hariharan; S Ravikumar; S Vasudev; Sandeep Desai; Sanjay Galwankar; SD Mahajan; SD Mande; Simple Agarwal; SK Shukla; SK Todkar; SM Warde; SS Manjeshwar; Suresh Gandhi; SV Subramanian; SW Patwardhan; Swapna Chaudary; TR Venkatraman; V Aravind; V K Karekar; VB Ulman; Venu Account; Venugopal Menon; VH Iyer; Vijay Lal; Vinod Sane; Viren Shah; Vivek Shiroor; VM Patel; VR Swamy; VS Iyer; A Naveen Kumar; AM Deshmukh; AR Rajurkar; Arvind Rao; Asgar Saikh; Avadhut B Rasal AGM IT TQM; CD Mehta Sr DGM SDP; Devendra Joglekar; Girish Handigol; Gopal Pujar; Henry Desousa; Hiro Hingorani; HS Naik; HT Mistry VP SDP; Jairam Menon; Jayant Jeste; KP Kotwal; Larry Neeff - L&T; Laurain Chauhan; MB Meher; N Vasudevan; Naresh Dhawan; Paras Kothary; Parvathy Seshan; Pervin Kapadia Bhasin; Rajesh Talekar; Rishikesh Joshi; RK Viswanathan; SA Bhoir; Sambhaji Shendkar; Samir V Kamat AGM IT; Sandeep Mishra; Sandeep S Kharate SDGM SDP TQM; Sandeep Shenoy; Sandesh Darne; Sanjay Bhide; Sanjeev Gholap; Santosh Pawaskar; SN Choubal; SP Goel; SS Ahluwalia; Suresh Deshmukh; T Syamalan; Vinod S Mahindrakar SDGM SDP Technology Group; VV Surve
Subject: Legal Opinion on L&T Switchgear and Other Stories

My well meaning friends suggested that I take legal opinion from L&T on this publication. I had approached them and now I have clearance from them.

A big thanks to those who contributed articles. Here is the exchange that took place between me, L&T Legal Department and L&T HR Department.

Here is the email exchange.

Dear Mr Bhatt:

I am HR Shenoy and worked for L&T from 1963 to 2000. I have just completed compiling contributions from L&T-ites, mostly ex, into a book titled “L&T Switchgear and Other Stories – Memoirs of Employees who made Larsen & Toubro Great.”

I am enclosing the complete manuscript which is in the final stages of editing.

The book contains contributions from various cadres of people including those who held the positions of General Managers and Regional Managers like HC Parekh and SP Goel. Foreword is by John B Monteiro who was heading Public Relations Department till 1998 and who was my mentor in writing during our association with Powai Pageant.

Maximum effort has gone into including only positive stories and statements, editing out any hint of negativity.  A perusal of bio-data and pages up to Preface and finally last article Epilogue will give you an idea as to what the book is all about.

I have a lot of well wishers who advised to take opinion on the legality of such a book from the Corporate perspective.  Hence, this email to you. I intend to self-publish this book through notionpress.com Chennai who have already published my first book COMMON HUMANS – UNCOMMON HUMOUR & EXPERIENCES. I am just 75.

I look forward to your confirmation that I can go ahead with this venture. My target date (in L&T we always had targets) for releasing the book is 1st August 2016. Time permitting, please do read the whole book; I am sure you will be touched.

Thank you and regards.

HRS

....

Dear Mr. Shenoy,

I have gone through the manuscript sent by you and am happy to state that you have undertaken and executed a wonderful task, which many of us desire but do not accomplish. It is these small exchanges which we share in our working life, worth of which is never felt then but later on we realise the importance of it and see as to how it has shaped our lives. Congratulations  !!!

The simplicity of L & T ites is visible in your mail wherein you have sought my opinion on the “legality” of publishing your book. In the first place I am not aware of any such necessity, as today, you having retired from service, are not in an employee/employer relationship. Secondly, all that you seek to publish are fond memories of by-gone years while you were in service. I personally think, you do not require any approval from the Company.

However, having raised this issue and I, not being authorised to state either way, I forward your request, together with the manuscript, to our Corporate HR Head, Yogi Sriram to consider your request and revert to you.

Congratulations once again and Good Luck to you.

Regards,

S.K.Bhatt.

 …..

Dear Mr Shenoy

I join Bhatt ji in congratulating you

This book will be very interesting for our new joiners since it exemplifies a life of loyalty and gratitude (rarely expressed these days)

We will add the book to our Library

Regards,

Yogi

…….

My dear Sirs:

Thank you all for taking the trouble to send me the email even before the working hours start. That was L&T and that is L&T of which I am proud.

I am also glad to hear that you are going to include the book in the library.

Let me add a few more sentences and take your time. In 1994, L&T conducted a programme on 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I fell in love with that book. I kept a copy on my table and kept revisiting. Whenever presence of mind permitted, I practised those principles.

This book L&T Switchgear and Other Stories should find a place on every employee's table, because it highlights how to achieve job satisfaction without ever waiting for someone else to provide it.

This also encourages me to start work on Volume 2, of course after the publication of Volume 1 and I take some deep breaths.

I will keep you informed when the book is published.

Regards

HRS

HR Shenoy, 7666128505

Co-Founder, Tejora Technologies Limited, tejora.com