RIYADH, 6 September 2006 — Three years since the start of his labor dispute, no solution seems to be in sight over Dr. Ganesh Pande’s plight.
Despite the intervention of the Riyadh governorate, several appeals by the Indian ambassador, including personal visits to the Labor Ministry, the situation concerning the Indian internist is back to square one.
Quoting his Saudi lawyer Lotfi Madani, Pande said that even the new labor law is silent on the issue of the continued absence of the Saudi sponsor at court hearings.
“There is a loophole in the law,” he said. “The labor committee could always say that it is studying the case when legal disputes drag on for years. I don’t see any hope of justice in such a situation.”
He pointed out that despite all his efforts, the old sponsor kept his passport for three years. And when he returned it following the Riyadh governor’s intervention, both the passport and his iqama had expired.
“Even though I have a letter from the governor authorizing me to work anywhere till my problem is solved, this has landed me in a very difficult situation,” he said. “It means I cannot operate my bank account, buy a car, or visit any place where I have to deposit my iqama.”
In this context, Khaled Almaeena, editor in chief of Arab News, has drawn the attention of Labor Minister Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi in his signed article published in Al-Eqtisadiah on Saturday.
Almaeena has highlighted Pande’s case and pointed out that even the National Society for Human Rights has pleaded its inability to take up the case. As a result, the Indian doctor has lost SR178,000 ($47,466) when he resigned from the polyclinic where he had been working for 17 years.
The article also points out that during these years of virtual imprisonment, Pande could neither visit India to attend the wedding of his daughter nor the funerals of his aunt and brother. “He has remained a victim of bureaucracy,” wrote Almaeena.
In his telephone call, Pande wondered how, despite a documented case of injustice at the hands of his previous sponsor, no action has been taken against him.
The main problem, as he sees it, is the repeated postponement of hearings at the higher labor committee. He said his inquiries revealed that there are many other cases pending with the higher labor committee for more than three years.
In this context he pointed out that an Indian executive with an American passport, who had previously been working with a multinational company from the US, faced no difficulty in the change of sponsorship when he switched over to a new sponsor. Citing this particular case, Pande wonders whether the nationality of an employee is factored in when it comes to resolving labor disputes.
The second aspect concerns implementation of the existing regulations. This question has also been raised at the highest level. Whether it is at the level of labor, commercial or judicial issues, all fingers point toward the sluggish pace of the bureaucracy or loopholes in the regulatory framework that lends itself to different interpretation.
According to Ismael S. Nazer, a Dammam-based attorney and legal adviser, if the employer is properly served with legal summons to appear in court, then the Labor Court can seek the help of police to produce him in court. “If he still does not appear, the court can hear the claim in his absence. The decision can be enforced by the police at the request of the claimant,” Nazer said in a written reply to Arab News. “However, the employer can appeal to the Supreme Labor Court in Riyadh. The decision of the supreme court is final and enforceable through the police.”
In an unrelated development, a Sikh doctor in Riyadh has claimed that he cannot leave the Kingdom after quitting his job over pressure to remove his turban and cut his hair. Arab News tried to contact the Indian Embassy about this case, but it had no information.
In the incident, Dr. Charanjit Singh, who worked in a hospital in Riyadh, allegedly was pressured to cut his hair and take off his turban. He refused and left that job to join another hospital, but there also he faced a similar situation. The doctor is now said to be jobless and wants to return to India, but the agent who arranged his employment is keeping his passport.
