Company asking for notice pay after firing me

1 year ago

My tenure as a cs agent was 2 yrs and 3 months and for about 18 months I was in one department, which was somewhat decent and the managers were good. I had to take a 1 month off within the first 18 months due to hospitalization of my father during the covid outbreak. That was my first major off. That was after 8+ months of working perfectly without taking more than 5 days off during those 8 months. But after I was transferred to this new team, everything went downhill. The managers were bad and not at all understanding, they kept changing my timings which had a bad impact on my sleep schedule and other personal aspects. I had certain issues myself health wise and had discussed this with a manager and had to take 2 months off and I was warned by HR at the end of that period about this and they have been deducting parts of my salary every single month since then. I rejoined but I was not at all happy in the job and was planning to leave it soon as I need to study for exams that I was planning to write in May, 2023. And the main issue occurred within the last 20 days of my work. I was still quite a bit affected by my deficiencies and had another small relapse. This started on 5th Oct, when I had a really bad case of headaches and mouth ulcers due to b12 deficiencies and this is where the issue gets complicated, they changed my manager 3 times during this 20 day period and I will agree that I was at fault a little bit but the main fault lies with the company. The first manager was changed within the first 2 days and he provided a proper notice of this change and informed me who the new manager will be so I had an idea and informed the guy about my situation and I later received an email from the leave service team regarding the same and I thought that he had requested this. I didnt realize that they later changed my manager on 16th and neither the second guy nor the last active manager texted me about the change. I received a notice on 19th saying Ive been on leave from 5th without informing a manager and I need to get in touch with my manager and provide a reason before 25th. As I had already informed my manager (or at least who I thought was my active manager)
about my situation, I didnt get back to him (which was a mistake I understand) and on 25th, they directly send me a termination letter saying I was grossly negligent towards my duties and my contract will be terminated. I was shocked at the time I received this and when I logged into the company system, I can see that my active manager had been changed as well and upon inquiring with HR they said the second manager was the one who reported me. He never even warned me about reporting me to HR or about the manager change, cause if I knew that my manager was changed, I would have gotten in touch with him and informed him about the situation and mitigated this. This isn't much of a concern here though as I was about to leave regardless, but now after they finalize my final settlement, they inform me that they overpaid me and I need pay them back the notice pay, my last month's salary and a bunch of other stuff like short pay deductions, negative leave encashment of 11k etc, totaling upto 1 lakh. Why would I be paying notice pay and all of these other components if I get fired? Is there a legal basis to this request, because after the way I was treated by them, I do not want pay them a single rupee and will fight them if they decide to take legal action as even the terms of employment do not suggest that I would be paying them notice for getting fired. Sorry if this is a bit long winded but I do need some advice here.