KARACHI, July 21: The Sindh High Court issued the State Bank a notice for July 24 in a writ petition challenging disbandment of its employees’ unions.

The petition was moved by the Democratic Workers Union, one of the dissolved unions, through Advocate Chaurdhry Rashid Ahmad. He submitted that the ban was in violation of the fundamental right of association guaranteed by Article 17 of the Constitution and the labour laws.

The ban, the lawyer said, was imposed following a pronouncement by a member of the National Industrial Relations Commission that after the division of the bank into two separate corporations, including the Banking Services Corporation, the unions had ceased to exist.

He said the bank essentially remained a single unit despite the creation of new corporations. The old unions could not be abolished only because of a new administrative arrangement.

A division bench, comprising Justices Zahid Kurban Alavi and Zia Perwez, directed that the SBP be put on preadmission notice of the petition for July 24.