MoU dated 22.07.2020 is now challenged in Chennai High Court and Karnataka High Court

Good news. 11th Bipartite Settlement MoU dated 22nd July 2020 :: This MoU is now challenged in Chennai High Court and Karnataka High Court. Some more cases may come up in other High Court also. A few interesting legal points from the court cases are :: One of the Constituent of UFBU namely BEFI did not sign the MoU and is vehemently opposing MoU in public forum. Three other Unions (INBEF, NOBW, AIBOA) who have signed MoU also come out strongly against it and stated that they were forced to sign. Thus, when there is no consensus and UFBU itself is disintegrated by the exit of BEFI it is incumbent on IBA to refer the dispute to the Central Labour Commissioner for adjudication but instead signed MoU. IBA declares through their Circular that its functioning and authority is not amenable to judicial review and not subjected to the rule of law. Though IBA signed 10 Bipartite Settlements in the past representing Bank managements, now IBA claims that being an unregistered body it is not accountable to the judicial proceedings. Thus the unregistered body of IBA has no legal right or status to represent or to sign any MoU or settlement with registered Trade Unions. The unregistered body of IBA has no legal status to represent for anyone including IBA and the IBA representing for the Bank managements is the foundational illegality. The rule of law necessitates that to validate any MoU all the individual member Banks have to sign MoU as parties with the registered Trade Unions arrayed on the other side. Therefore, the invalid MoU ought not to be arbitrarily thrust on the Bank employees Officers Pensioners family pensioners etc. much to their disadvantage. Source :: Chennai High Court case report.