A trio crew headed by Justice Gulzar Ahmed of Supreme Court of Pakistan has interrogated the government’s plan to run the Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) on public-private partnership. According to the government lawyer, Section 11 of the Industrial Relations Act, 2012, will create obstacles in this matter and what government has planned will lead to disaster. Due to this plan there will be more than 500 cases in courts and the government would have to give jobs to the same people. The additional attorney general informed the court that the cabinet had not yet decided to lay off all employees of PSM. Justice Ijazul Ahsan said according to the plan the government would lay off 95 percent of the employees and make fresh recruitment on contract basis. At present, 320 PSM-related cases are pending before the high courts and 29 in Supreme Court. The retired employees of the PSM in 2017 has filed an appeal before the SHC and struggled that they are suffering because of unpaid dues. They had also appealed that the PSM had lent out its land worth billions of rupees but the emeritus employees were not paid their pension benefits and other dues.
