Bank staff fail to convince HC

The Hyderabad High Court has refused to grant relief to contract employees of the AP Grameena Vikas Bank working in AP and TS.

It said that without factual basis and without giving any particulars of the members of the petitioner unions who have completed more than 10 years of service, no relief can be granted.

Justice A. Rajashekar Reddy was dismissing a batch of petitions filed by the AP Grameena Vikas Bank Temporary Employees Union and the unregistered Telangana Grameena Bank Temporary Employees Union and several casual employees.

They had challenged the notifications issued on July 13 and July 20, calling for housekeeping services contract to replace the members of both unions, who are temporary employees working on a wage basis.

The petitioners contended that the members of the unions were working in the bank for long and as such were entitled to regularisation of service. The bank should have framed a scheme to absorb them as regular employees, they said.

The bank contended that the writ petitions were not maintainable as there was no statutory rule or provision having statutory force which has been violated for the purpose of maintaining these writ petitions. As such, the petitioners cannot invoke the extraordinary jurisdiction of the court under Article 226 of the Constitution.

The bank said it had issued the notification as per the recommendations of the Mitra Committee constituted by the Centre to recommend manpower planning in regional rural banks. daily