HYDERABAD, Jan 23: A division bench of the Sindh High Court, Hyderabad circuit, on Thursday has directed 57 retired employees of the Sindh Road Transport Corporation (SRTC) to seek remedy from the proper forum regarding payment of their mark-up.
The chairman, SRTC, the secretary, Labour, and the SRTC were cited as respondents in the petition, filed by Ghulam Mohammad and 56 other SRTC workers before the court through Advocate Yousuf Leghari.
The petitioners claimed that they were retired in 1999 after a tripartite agreement, signed between the CBA workers union, officers association, action committee of workers, and the Sindh government on Dec 6, 1999.
According to the agreement, they were retired following the payment of golden handshake.
The petitioners claimed that the workers were given cheques for the payment, while the payment of 15 per cent mark-up was to be paid later.
They claimed that later the authorities declined to pay the mark-up to the workers. Some of the workers, however, obtained the cheques without payment while withdrawing from their claim of mark-up.
The petitioners claimed that the respondents should be directed to pay them the mark-up.
The additional AG, Sindh, Masood A. Noorani, argued before the court that the contractual obligations could not be discussed and decided by the Sindh High Court through a constitutional petition.
He produced copies of orders, passed in petition numbers 567 and 621 of the Hyderabad and Sukkur circuit benches respectively.
He argued that in these orders the benches had held that matters of contractual obligations should be decided at the proper forum as the matters of contractual agreements could not be discussed by the Sindh High Court.
The petitioners’ counsel also went through the copies of the judgments and withdrew the petition.
The court observed that the petitioners could seek remedy, if they desired, from the civil court or any other proper forum.
INTOXICATED: Two youths, Asif and Irfan Ahmed, were admitted to the Civil Hospital after they took some poisonous substance.
They were residents of Latifabad and Phuleli respectively.
Both tried to commit suicide due to being disturbed over a domestic matter.