One of the most followed illegal corporate termination cases in recent times is Anjlli V Patil versus Bajaj Life Insurance

The case originated in November 2023, when the petitioner, Anjlli V. Patil – a military spouse and Vice President at Bajaj Life Insurance – alleged that her calls had been recorded for over a year and that she had been threatened by the CFO and legal head, leading her to file both criminal and civil cases. After she repeatedly wrote to management demanding an inquiry and later sent a legal notice, she was allegedly illegally terminated while on sick leave through a backdated letter, in an apparent attempt to silence her demand for a fair inquiry, with corporate governance norms, principles of natural justice, and the right to be heard allegedly ignored by the top management.

Her civil suit before the Pune District Court has been pending since 2023, and Bajaj challenged its admissibility solely on the ground of non-payment of court fees – an exemption legally available to military dependents – without citing any other reason. A January 2024 trial-court order compelling her to pay court fees was set aside by the Bombay High Court in 2024, which held that the suit was admissible because military dependents are exempt from court fees by law. Sanjiv Bajaj and others then filed a plea in the Supreme Court, again raising only the court-fees issue, but the apex court rejected the plea at the admission stage and also rejected Sanjiv Bajaj’s request to have his name removed from the proceedings.

In March 2024, the lower court denied interim relief, observing that the termination appeared legal and that the suit was filed as an act of vengeance, while simultaneously contradicting itself by stating that Patil had been terminated for sharing confidential information outside the company even though the termination letter categorized it as termination simpliciter. Patil subsequently approached the Bombay High Court in 2024, and the matter was listed for hearing on 29 July 2026.

While the High Court used terminology such as “withdrawn under institutions” and did not dismiss the appeal, the crux of the order is that all observations in the trial court’s 19 March 2024 order must be ignored and that a fair trial must proceed on the merits of the case, uninfluenced by the contradictory observations made by the trial court at the interim stage. Interestingly, Bajaj management has also under a malicious attempt to jeopardize her further career prospects has blocked her Service certificate and FnF. While, Patil, continues to fight her legal battle against a large and powerful entity , its remains to be seen whether justice prevails on such unfair practices as this would also affect many such similar genuine cases being fought in the country.

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