PESHAWAR, April 25: The State Life Insurance Corporation has postponed half a dozen times a test to be given to its employees to regularize their services since it was first scheduled for June 6, 2001. Now it is slated to be held on May 13, 2002, official sources told Dawn.

Owning to legal lacunae, the SLIC management is facing a difficult situation over giving trade proficiency test to those of its employees who have worked for six years and are awaiting regularization of their services. They include stenographers and stenotypists.

By requiring the employees to take this test and denying them regularization of service for no obvious reasons, the SLIC management is not only flouting service rules, but also violating the judgment of Federal Service Tribunal, which was duly upheld by the Supreme Court in Feb, 2001, the sources said.

Disregarding the court verdict, the corporation decided to charge-sheet workers reinstated through litigation. But the management faced difficulties in substantiating its claim and subsequently terminating their services, the sources said.

On Feb 21, 2002, three of the aggrieved employees moved the Peshawar High Court against the SLIC decision of giving trade proficiency test to them after six years of employment.

The two-member bench of PHC, while staying the test, ruled on Feb 28 that the status quo shall be maintained till the petitioners approached the FST.

According to the law, the employees had to submit an appeal to the SLIC chairman before moving the FST for the second time in the same case.

They prayed the corporation to regularize their services, release their annual grade increments and advance bonuses for six years, the sources said, “but the corporation replied them that their pleas could not be entertained.”