The High Court yesterday directed authorities concerned to complete the process of appointing Biman officials, who were terminated under Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) in 2007, to vacant posts within 97 days.
Biman Bangladesh Airlines authorities will have to publish advertisements for the appointment within seven days after receiving a copy of the order.
The authorities must receive applications from the candidates within 15 days after publication of the advertisement, scrutinise those in the next 60 days and give appointment letters to the candidates within 15 days after the scrutiny, the court said in the order.
The order came after a hearing on a contempt of court petition jointly filed by Md Jahangir Alam and Md Selim Miah, who had been terminated under the VRS, against four Biman officials including its acting managing director AM Mosaddique Ahmed.
The three other Biman officials are directors Rajpati Sarkar (administration) and Md Shah Newaz (sales and marketing), and manager (law) Ajra Nasrin Rahman.
The petition filed on July 8 said the Biman authorities on July 5 issued a notice to appoint fresh candidates to Biman's Purchase Section violating a previous directive of the HC.
The HC on March 4 this year declared valid the VRS under which 1,877 Biman employees were terminated during the military-backed caretaker government. It, however, ordered the Biman authorities to fill up 608 vacant posts of Biman from the terminated staffs, and to reinstate the rest in phases.
Following the filing of the petition, the HC on July 9 summoned the Biman officials to explain their conduct before the court.
The officials yesterday appeared before the HC bench of Justice Farah Mahbub and Justice Abdur Rob and offered unconditional apology for undertaking the process of appointing fresh candidates.
The bench pardoned and exempted them from the contempt of court charge by disposing of the petition.
Lawyer Ahsanul Karim appeared for the petitioners, while AM Amin Uddin for the Biman officials.