Srinagar- The High Court of J&K and Ladakh has stayed an order by Managing Director J&K State Cooperative Agriculture & Rural Development Bank Ltd (SCARD Bank) regarding payment of only 40% of the salary to around fifty employees from the Kashmir Valley.
The employees, 47 in number, said that they have been adversely affected by 22 December last year order by the Managing Director, “purportedly acting upon the directions of the Administrator”, to direct payment of only 40% of the salary to them.
“The direction is specific to the Kashmir division only. The order per se does not make any sense as to on what basis/reasons the Managing Director of respondent no. 4 (J&K State Cooperative Agriculture & Rural Development Bank Ltd) has resorted to such a course of action,” a bench of Justice Rahul Bharti observed and issued notice to the authorities.
“In the meantime, the operation of the impugned order no. 39 of 2023 dated 22.12.2023 read with communication no. Adm 3713-16 dated 20.12.2023 of theAdministrator of the respondent no. 4 shall remain stayed,” the court said, adding, “There shall be no deduction with respect to the salary of the petitioners or for that matter of other employees of the respondent no. 4 of Kashmir division.”
This order is, however, subject to objections from the other side, the court added. The Bank primarily provides Medium Term and Long Term Loan to the agriculturists and horticulturists of the UT for specified agricultural and non-agricultural activities under the guidance and support of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) which also refinances the State Cooperative Agricultural and Rural Development Banks all over the country.
“The petitioners continued to be pressed with attainable targets and thus faced multiple issues especially with regards to the Deposits and Lending, being eventually blamed for poor performance,” the petitioners said.
The Bank authorities, they said, over the years regularly issued circulars whereby target goals for deposits were set up and emphasis was laid on the recovery of NPAs. “That it was also accentuated in the Circulars that failure to meet the set targets would result in strict disciplinary action against the employees,” they said.
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