The Labour and Employment Ministry has taken an initiative to amend some provisions of the existing labour laws to help labourers get proper justice from the labour court.
State Minister for Labour and Employment Mojibul Haque Chunnu requested Law Minister Anisul Haq to take the initiative.
The law minister consented to my suggestion, said Chunnu.
He said: “The ministry wants to set a time frame for quick disposal of labour cases as the tribunals cannot take unlimited time. The time must not go beyond four to six months.”
The provision of filing writ petition with the HC to stay the order or verdict of the labour court will be scrapped, he said. The owners should not go to the HC to file a writ petition without exhausting the process in the labour appellate tribunal, he said. “There is no scope for filing writ petition against the judgement of administrative tribunal.”
The cases filed in the labour court are usually regarded as civil suit but the provision will also be changed, he noted saying that the cases be treated as criminal cases after the amendment.
The junior minister hoped the amendment will reduce the number of labour cases and ensure justice for workers.
At present a total of 16,092 labour cases filed under the labour act had remained under trial in eight labour courts of the country including the labour appellate tribunal until September 30.
The number of cases was 15,553 in last August. In September 1,147 more cases added to the previous figure. But as 608 cases were disposed of by the time the number stood at 16092.
According to the Labour Ministry, the number of pending (under trial) cases is going up every day due to shortage of tribunals, negligence of the industry owners and loopholes in the existing labour law.
According to the officials of the labour ministry there is no time frame for disposal of cases in the existing labour law. As a result, the cases are disposed of at a slow pace.
Besides, factory or industry owners prefers High Court (HC) to that of the appellate tribunal for filing writ petitions against verdicts given by the labour court.
After they receive stay order from the HC they try to buy time resulting in delay in the total process.
As the justice is delayed the plaintiffs lose interest and do not want to run the case. In most cases they get into a deal with the labour court lawyers.
As per the deal the lawyers run the case and finally when the case is disposed of they go fifty-fifty on the compensation.
As the plaintiffs never get justice because of the owners’ delaying tactic most workers settle the issue amicably by a third party without filing any case against owners, officials of the ministry said.
