KARACHI:
The Sindh High Court suspended on Thursday an April 2010 order in which the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) sacked dozens of its workers.
The judgment was read out by Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi. It was reserved a few months ago by Justice Munib Akhtar. KESC sacked 294 employees on April 19, 2010.
The petitioners maintained that sacking them was illegal as they fell within the category of essential maintenance staff. They were represented by Barrister Salahuddin Ahmed and Gohar Iqbal advocate.
The judgment has directed KESC to pay these staffers all their accumulated salaries and perks within 15 days. The SHC had, earlier, while hearing a suit filed by 45 plaintiffs, officers of KESC, suspended the order to terminate them from service after which more officers had filed a suit through Barrister Salahuddin Ahmed, citing the KESC, secretary of Water and Power and the Privatisation Commission as respondents.
The counsel for plaintiffs submitted that KESC had amended the rules of service of 2002 and sacked them.
The counsel stated that there was no specific allegation against them.
They were not served with any show-cause notice either, the counsel argued, adding that while dismissing them from service, KESC alleged that “corrupt and non suitable” employees had been sacked. This closed the door for other employment, the counsel argued. He appealed to the court to order KESC to give them their jobs back.
Abdul Sattar Pirzada advocate, representing defendant KESC, submitted that it was a private organisation where the relation between the employer and employee was of a “master and servant” and that any employees can be sacked at any time if their performance is not satisfactory.
Rebutting the argument, counsel for the plaintiff said that KESC was not a completely private entity as the government provides it financial assistance worth billions of rupees in a subsidy and hence the state has a stake in it. And the state had to protect the rights of the people (in this case KESC employees). Due to the decrease in the supply of
natural gas, the KESC’s electricity generating supply had also decreased. This means that loadsheding will take place for one and a half hours after every two hours.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 29th, 2011.
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