SHC orders immediate settlement of retired employees insurance claims

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday ordered immediate payment of group insurance claims of the Sindh government’s retired employees, ARY News reported.

A two-judge bench of the Sindh high court (SHC), headed by Justice Salahuddin Panhwar, blasted the State Life for keeping claims in pending for long time, while hearing a case of delay in payment of group insurance of 5,00,000 government employees of Sindh.

“Sitting over Rs. 2.5 billion funds, the insurance company keeping claims in pending. A criminal case can be filed against them,” the bench remarked.

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 claims of families of 5,000 deceased employees have also been in pending.

The bench directed for making the verification procedure easier for the group insurance claim.

Earlier, the petitioners’ counsel said that in other provinces, the amount paid on retirement of an employee, while in Sindh, they keep the payment in pending until a retired government employee reaches to 65 years of age.

Earlier, the 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.