KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday ordered the payment of group insurance claims of Sindh government’s retired employees without any delay.
A two-judge bench of the Sindh high court (SHC), headed by Justice Salahuddin Panhwar, while hearing a case of delay in payment of group insurance of 5,00,000 government employees of Sindh, blasted the State Life for keeping the insurance claims pending for a long time.
“Sitting over Rs. 2.5 billion funds, the insurance company keeps claims pending. A criminal case can be filed against them,” the bench remarked.
The bench directed for making the verification procedure easier for the group insurance claim.
Formerly, the counsel of petitioners mentioned that in other provinces, the amount gets paid on retirement of an employee, while in Sindh, the payment is kept pending until a retired government employee reaches the age of 65 years.
The court directed the government to amend the law, like other provinces, for immediate payment of the group insurance amount.
Secretary Finance Sindh informed the court that the claims of 5,000 deceased employees’ families have also been pending.
Sindh high court (SHC) had directed the provincial government and the State Life to settle the insurance claims of provincial government employees or their legal heirs within a month.
It is to be mentioned here that several constitutional petitions have been filed challenging the delay in settlement of insurance claims.
