Bank stopped from sacking employees

Single-member bench admits petition filed by PICIC employees which was amalgamated with the NIB Bank.

KARACHI: The National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC) has restrained NIB Bank from sacking its employees till the next date of hearing the case.

A single-member bench, headed by NIRC member Bashir Ahmed Memon, admitted a petition filed by NIB Employees Front of Pakistan against NIB Bank and issued a notice to the respondents asking them to file their comments on the main petition along with their counter-affidavit in response to the stay application, on November 2.

The petitioners’ counsel had submitted that the “respondents are threatening them to accept so-called VSS (Voluntary Separation Scheme), otherwise they will be removed or dismissed from employment”.

The bench noted that the petition carried weight and issued the order that “the respondents are restrained from removing, terminating or taking any adverse action regarding the employment of the petitioners under the garb of VSS till the next date”. The petitioners were all employees of the Pakistan Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation (PICIC) which was amalgamated with NIB Bank.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2010.