Pakistan is the only country where privatisation results in joblessness of thousands of people, observed a Supreme Court bench hearing a suo moto case pertaining to sacking of 2453 non-clerical employees of Habib Bank Limited (HBL). A three-member bench of the apex court headed by Justice Javed Iqbal summoned record of the sacked employees along with courts proceedings if any till August 20.
Other members of the bench include Justice Chaudhry Ejaz Yousaf and Justice Sardar Muhammad Aslam. Justice Javed Iqbal observed that only sick units should have to be privatised, adding there was no need of privatising profit-earning institutions. Advocate S. M. Zafar represented the HBL and Syed Mukhtar appeared before the court as counsel for the sacked employees.
Syed Mukhtar, apprised the court that the Habib Bank employees were sacked on March 10, 2006 after the privatisation of the bank, without any disciplinary action. He said that despite not any case against the employees police started a crackdown against them when they started agitation against the bank administration. He requested the court to order immediate reinstatement of the HBL sacked employees.
He said time had proved that the real aim of privatisation in Pakistan was not industrial progress, but to sell national institutions. He recalled that prior to privatisation, the buyers of the HBL had promised not to render a single worker jobless, but they had sacked some 2453 employees with a single stroke of pen.
S.M. Zafar, counsel for HBL stated that the case did not fall into suo moto jurisdiction of the court as fundamental rights of the employees were not violated. He said that these employees were sacked through proper procedure and were paid with a handsome amount as compensation. In addition, all of the sacked employees were offered jobs in the other companies owned by the HBL administration, he added. Afterwards, the court called for the record and adjourned the hearing till August 20.
Comments
Comments are closed.