Amendments in NBP bye-laws approved by Cabinet

The federal cabinet approved amendments in bye-laws of National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) aimed at discouraging hiring through third party and to reduce litigation; well informed sources told Business Recorder. Earlier, the amendment was approved by the Cabinet for Disposal of Legislative Cases (CCLC) headed by the Minister for Law and Justice on May 29, 2018.
According to sources, the committee was informed that section 32 of the National Bank of Pakistan Ordinance, 1949 empowered the Central Board of the Bank to make its bye-laws with the approval of the Federal Government. The NBP Board of Directors (BoD) in its 277th meeting had resolved that the following new sub-clause may be inserted in the NBP Bye-Laws in sub-bye-law (2) of bye-law 51 "(vi) any policy regarding absorption/regularization of employees, appointed/recruited under direct contract with the Bank and for third party contracts, on such terms and conditions of service as determined by the Board from time to time, including but not limited to their remuneration, transfers/postings, service grades, evaluation criteria, promotion, end service benefits etc."
The committee was apprised that the State Bank of Pakistan had endorsed the proposed amendment. Moreover, the Law & Justice Division had vetted the revised version of the draft. The summary was submitted in accordance with the Supreme Court of Pakistan''s judgment reported as PLD 2016 SC 808 for approval of the Federal Government i.e Federal Cabinet/ for amendments in NBP Bye-Laws.
During the course of discussion in CCLC it was pointed out that there were three types of employment in NBP i.e. regular, contractual and third party employment. Recently, the Supreme Court had declared the practice of contract employment a violation of Articles 9 and 25 of the Constitution and provided a broader and clearer interpretation regarding contract and third party employment and directed employers to regularize contract workers retrospectively.
In this context in order to avoid untoward litigation there was a need to empower Board of Directors through the said amendment. Principal Law officer of the bank stated that the proposed measure will resolve most of the problems relating to terms and conditions of service of employees and will drastically reduce service related litigation of the Bank.
It was also observed that rule 51(2)(iii) of NBP by-laws already empowered the Board in matters relating to staff service rules. It was also pointed out that regularization/absorption of persons in the employment of the Bank who were under third party contract would be against the principles of merit and, in this scenario, transparency could not be ensured. This might be a bad precedent which could adversely affect other autonomous, bodies of the Government. On May 31, the decision of CCLC was presented before the Abbasi led cabinet, in its last meeting, which ratified the decision of the committee.