Court restrains IDBI trade unions from hindering work at bank brances

Bank employees raised 'privatisation' issue, following which labour authorities held conciliation talks from March 21 to 24, which however ended in failure

Madras High Court has restrained various trade unions in IDBI Bank from interfering with its smooth functioning and staging demonstrations in and around the premises of its branches in Tamil Nadu, pending disposal of a civil suit.

Justice K K Sasidharan who granted the interim injunction Monday on a petition by IDBI Bank Ltd, directed the unions to desist from causing impediments to the normal functioning of branches of the bank throughout the state, including zonal office in Chennai.

"Unions must not cause inconvenience to customers visiting the premises of any IDBI bank in the state for transaction purpose," the court said.

The judge also ordered the unions to abstain from holding any kind of meeting or demonstration within a radius of 100 meters of any IDBI branch, or threatening or wrongfully confining any willing bank employee who wanted to perform their duties.

The IDBI Management submitted that Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's statement in his recent budget speech over bringing down government stake in the bank was misconstrued by employees as attempts to privatise it.

The government of India is the single largest shareholder of IDBI Bank, holding 80.16% equity in share capital.

The Bank showed a net loss of Rs 2184 crore for the December quarter 2015 on account of Non Performing Assets.

IDBI said employees raised 'privatisation' issue, following which labour authorities held conciliation talks from March 21 to 24, which however ended in failure.

IDBI said they were constrained to move court as the unions had served notice of strike from March 28 to 31 even before the seven-day deadline of submission of failure report.

All India IDBI Employees' Association, IDBI Officers Organisation (affiliated to Bharatiya Majdoor Sangh), United Platform of IDBI Bank Unions (All India IDBI Officers Association), are among the other unions striking work.

When the matter came up yesterday, the court had granted the interim injunction and posted the matter to April 25.