With the increase in the available technology, such as smart phones, it is becoming more common for employees to make covert recordings of disciplinary and grievance hearings. As a rule, a tribunal is likely to allow evidence obtained by covert recording when it relates to the meeting itself, but there is a grey area in respect of what should happen if the employee leaves the recording device in the room in order to hear the deliberations of the panel.
In this scenario, the courts have ruled in the past that genuine deliberations of a disciplinary panel should not be admissible, unless they provide evidence of discrimination. The case of Punjab National Bank v Gosain shows how this can work in practice. Here, the private discussions recorded by Ms Gosain included the manager giving a direct instruction to dismiss her, and another individual saying he was planning to ignore the main issues raised in her grievance. Despite this being a recording of the private deliberations of the panel, the Tribunal found that this could be admitted in evidence as it did not relate to a discussion by the panel of the relevant issues. This would appear to be a fine distinction, and the Tribunal may have been influenced by the unpleasant content of the recordings.
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