Appellate stays HC order reversing Grameen Kalyan’s payments to workers
The Appellate Division also fixed 5 February as the hearing date on workers' leave to appeal, set to be held in an Appellate Division bench headed by the Chief Justice.
The Appellate Division on Sunday imposed a stay on the High Court order scrapping a labour court order that required Dr Muhammad Yunus's Grameen Kalyan company to pay Tk103 crore in arrears to its 106 workers.
Chamber Judge M Enayetur Rahim passed the order and scheduled the hearing date for the workers' leave to appeal on 5 February, which is set to be held in an Appellate Division bench headed by the Chief Justice.
"The stay will remain effective until the petition in the Appellate Division is resolved," the workers' lawyer Md Khurshid Alam Khan told The Business Standard.
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On 30 November, a High Court bench, led by Justice Jafor Ahmed, revoked the payment order issued by the Labour Appellate Tribunal and declared the lower Appellate Tribunal order illegal.
Earlier on 10 July, the Appellate Division ordered the High Court to dispose of the rule within two months, following a full court hearing of a petition filed by Workers' Association's leader Bimal Kumar Saha.
On 3 April, the Labour Appellate Tribunal ordered Grameen Kalyan to pay the company's 5% dividend to 106 sacked employees as per the Labour Act.
Muhammad Yunus, chairman of Grameen Kalyan, then challenged the tribunal decision in the High Court.
Following Dr Yunus' petition, the High Court on 30 May ordered a status quo on the Labour Appellate Tribunal order for six months. Dr Yunus then appealed against the HC order.
According to case records, the sacked 106 employees worked at Grameen Kalyan from 2006 to 2013.
Later, they were sacked on different grounds. However, the company did not provide 5% of the company's dividend for the fiscal years between 2006 and 2013 to the workers.
According to labour law, the company has to provide 5% of its dividend to the workers' participation fund as well as the welfare fund.
As the company refused to distribute workers' dividends among them, the aggrieved employees sent a legal notice to Grameen Kalyan. As the company did not respond, they filed the case with the labour court.
