Diamond Bank employees to approach HC seeking dues

Retrenched employees of the Surat-based Diamond Jubilee Co-operative Bank who are yet to be paid their dues, have decided to approach the Gujarat High Court and file a complaint of contempt of court against the bank administrator, registrar, joint registrar and the state co-operatives minister.

The employees could not meet the state registrar of co-operatives on Monday. The employees have now decided to approach the court on Wednesday.

Bank Kamdaar Sangh president Natu Patel, said, "The 179 employees of Diamond Co-operative Bank were retrenched on February 28 in view of an order of industrial court. The court had directed that the retrenched employees be paid their dues within 15 days. It has been more than three months now, but no employee has received any money."

A formula for paying 70 per cent of the dues to the employees had been prepared by the joint registrar A S Khandar, Diamond Co-operative Bank chief executive officer Jimmy Kharadi and bank administrator B C Patel. The formula had been approved by the state co-operatives minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasma on May 1.

The employees were assured payment of 70 per cent of the dues, totalling around Rs 5 crore within a week and cheques for the amount were deposited with Surat District Co-operative Bank by administrator Patel.

But, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) at this stage, upsetting the plans.

Quoting Section 35 (A) of the Banking Regulations Act, the Reserve Bank directed the bank not to pay any money to the employees.

After this, registrar B K Gupta met the employees and assured them of a speedy resolution of the vexed issue.

Gupta held talks with Reserve Bank officials and tried to convince them to pay the entire dues of the employees, instead of the 70 per cent amount.

These talks, however, did not lead to any solution. Gupta has repeatedly sought more and more time from the employees to resolve the issue.

Said Natu Patel, "Gupta had first assured us that we would get our money by June 2. As the talks failed to produce any result, he sought some more time. We had fixed June 14 as the deadline. We decided to take legal action if we did not receive our money by June 14."

"We are consulting our lawyers and plan to involve joint registrar A S Khandar, registrar B K Gupta, administrator B C Patel, bank manager Anshal Mehta and co-operatives minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasma in the case," Patel said.

"The industrial court had ordered that the retrenched employees be paid their dues within 15 days, but the employees are yet to receive any money. There is a perfect case of contempt of court against these persons and we plan to file the complaint on June 16," Patel said.