A petition was filed in the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Saturday challenging the dismissal of hundreds of thousands of factory workers and private employees during the lockdown — enforced to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus — in Punjab .

Government of Punjab, Punjab's Department of Industries and Commerce, and Department of Labour have been named as respondents in the petition, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, filed by Advocate Ishtiaq A Chaudhry.

While it notes that a nationwide lockdown has been imposed to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus in the country, the petition points out that trade organisations and factory owners have laid off workers during the lockdown in Punjab.

“Trade organisations have also cut the salaries of workers in Punjab,” the petition reads.

It further notes that the governments of Sindh and Balochistan have undertaken steps to protect the jobs of wokers in their provinces but in Punjab, it claims, hundreds of thousands of workers are now facing financial ruin after losing their jobs.

The petition requests the court to instruct the Punjab government to reinstate all workers fired after imposition of the lockdown in addition to financial compensation for them.