KARACHI: The Sindh Labour Court has served warrants of arrest on leading business leaders and industrialists of the city on a complaint lodged by Inspector of Factories, West division, Labour Department.
The warrants sent jitters across the business community, which felt that some conspiracy was being hatched against the present government striving hard for improving business climate for attracting local and foreign investment.
The notices issued by Sindh Labour Court-III directed some industrialists to appear in person and others were issued warrants of arrest. But the most untoward part of the episode is that the area police had been directed to search the accused industrialists and present them before the court.
According to reports some of the industrialists have gone underground fearing arrest and others are seeking legal advice from their solicitors so that bail before arrest could be arranged.
M A Jabbar, chairman Site Association of Industry, told Dawn that a court bailiff along with police from Site police station on Tuesday came to his office searching for some industrialists to serve warrants of arrest and other notices.
Jabbar said to his utter dismay the police and the bailiff of the court asked him to help them in finding out the industrialists against whom the court notices are issued because he is the head of their representative body.
On reading the court notices he came to know that two notices were issued in the name of Shabir Ahmed and another in the name of Asif Shaikhani. But the worst part of it that the warrant of arrest has been served under U/S 7(2) of SO 198. The section related to penalty of Rs100 and does not involve chasing industrialists on the charges.
In another case, he said an industrial unit at Site was served with recovery notices by Labour Levies department under section 202 of the Land Revenue Act. For this the department hired private ‘muscle’ to raid the company and make recovery of payments under coercive and extortionist method from the management of the unit.
The Site chief along with other business leaders representing different industrial estates and trade bodies were unanimous in their demand for immediate suspension of the Inspector of Factories, who has shown the brute authority for no reason and rhyme.
Business leaders were of the unanimous view that the Labour Department was discouraging industrial investment in the province in general and Karachi in particular. These leaders include president FPCCI Sultan Chawla, president Karachi Chamber Anjum Nisar, Korangi Association of Trade and Industry chairman Mian Zahid Hussain, Capt Moiz Khan, founder chairman of North Karachi Association of Trade and Industry and Younus Khimisani, chairman NKATI.
No comments:
Post a Comment