Srinagar: The All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC) strongly condemns the vindictive and illegal actions of Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) in terminating two principal office bearers and four members of the Association of Standard Chartered Bank Officers’ Kolkata (ASCBO) on 18 September 2025 under the false pretext of “redundancy.”

Those arbitrarily terminated include Com. Satyajeet Tripathy, General Secretary of ASCBO, Com. Tilottama Roy, President of ASCBO, and four other active members of the union. Their services were terminated with immediate effect, and dues were forcibly settled without due process or dialogue.

This brazen action has been carried out during the pendency of industrial disputes before the Central Industrial Tribunal and Labour Court, in clear violation of Section 33 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The law explicitly prohibits changes in service conditions or punitive measures against employees during adjudication without prior Tribunal approval.

By disregarding this legal safeguard, Standard Chartered Bank has displayed utter contempt of judicial authority. It is nothing less than unionbusting and victimisation, intended to silence officers who have been courageously raising their voice against discrimination, harassment, and exploitation within the Bank.

ASCBO, a registered trade union under the Trade Union Act, 1926 and affiliated to AIBOC, has consistently exposed the discriminatory and exploitative practices prevailing in SCB. The union has raised issues such as denial of NI Act holidays to officers while clerical staff enjoy them, severe pay disparity where officers are often paid less than clerical staff, and the misuse of redundancy and Performance Improvement Plan policies as tools of arbitrary dismissal.

Officers have also faced extended working hours, absence of work-life balance, and extreme pressure that undermines their wellbeing. Women officers, in particular, have been subjected to misbehaviour and harassment at the hands of senior management. To suppress this resistance, the management has gone so far as to suspend ASCBO’s official social media handles, attempting to gag the voice of dissent.

The latest terminations are not an isolated development but part of a continuing pattern of selective victimisation by SCB. In 2022, Com. Indranil Bhattacharyya, a Teller with 17 years of service, was terminated under the pretext of redundancy. Within months, the Bank recruited three new people in the same role, exposing the falsehood of the claim.

Again in 2024, Com. Sanjib Dey was targeted with a redundancy notice. The present action of terminating union leaders in 2025 is a further extension of this systematic misuse of redundancy provisions to selectively target employees and eliminate organised resistance.

AIBOC holds that these terminations are not only illegal but mala fide and vindictive. The Confederation demands the immediate reinstatement of all six terminated leaders and members of ASCBO. It also calls upon Standard Chartered Bank to withdraw its anti-union and anti-officer practices and to recognise ASCBO as the legitimate representative body of its officers.

At the same time, AIBOC urges the Ministry of Labour & Employment and the Reserve Bank of India to intervene without delay and hold SCB accountable for its blatant violation of Indian labour laws and contemptuous disregard of due legal process.

This attack on ASCBO is not merely an assault on one union; it is a direct challenge to the entire trade union movement in private and foreign banks. If such draconian measures are left unchecked, they will embolden other multinational corporations to trample upon the hard-won rights of Indian workers.

AIBOC reaffirms its solidarity with ASCBO and warns Standard Chartered Bank that these measures will be resisted with the full might of the organised banking fraternity. Unity is our strength, and injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.