Sindh Governor Kamran Khan Tessori has set aside the order of the provincial ombudsperson for the Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace that found K-Electric CEO Moonis Alvi guilty of harassment and creating a hostile environment for a woman, and ordered his immediate removal from service.
The order came on Alvi’s representation against the ombudsperson’s order under Section 9 of the Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act, 2010. Alvi said the complaint was not maintainable before the ombudsperson because it was filed by a former employee of KE, who had been terminated on account of poor work performance, to retaliate against her termination, and no harassment had been involved.
He said the admitted WhatsApp conversation establishes that there was no question of harassment, and this vital piece of evidence has been completely ignored by the ombudsperson. The impugned order of the ombudsperson is also without jurisdiction, as KE is a trans-provincial entity, he added.
The respondent, Mahreen Aziz Khan, supported the ombudsperson’s order, saying that the allegations against Alvi have been fully corroborated by the complaints made through the WhatsApp chat produced by her before the ombudsperson, and requested the governor to dismiss Alvi’s representation.
After the perusal of the ombudsperson’s order and the evidence, Tessori said it has been established through conversations that the respondent was having work related issues at KE. He said that this has been corroborated by her WhatsApp conversation with Alvi, in which she asked him to assign her and her team work, and the email dated July 31, 2020, presented by the respondent, in which he had expressed dissatisfaction with her work performance. The ombudsperson completely ignored the evidence available on record to arrive at the conclusion, he added.
Assisted by law adviser Mustafa Mahesar, he said in the order that the respondent had not filed any written complaint of harassment with KE’s relevant committee or any other authority, despite submitting a messaging app’s chat as evidence in the case.
The order noted that a series of allegations had been made by the former employee covering the period from the start of her employment until her termination. It also recorded Alvi’s position that the employee had been asked to resign by the company’s Board HR Committee due to poor performance, while the complainant claimed that her termination was linked to her allegations against him.
It said Alvi’s witness had provided the minutes of meetings showing that the employee had been offered to resign and had later been terminated on the basis of unsatisfactory performance feedback.
The order observed that the decision to terminate had been taken by the Board HR Committee rather than the CEO, thereby negating the claims of retaliation against him. Exercising his power conferred under Section 9 of the Act after having gone through the evidence, the governor set aside the impugned order of the ombudsperson.
The Sindh High Court had on July 31, 2025, suspended the ombudsperson’s order of removing Alvi from service over the ex-employee’s charges. The ombudsperson had observed that allegations of sexual harassment levelled by the complainant are heinous in nature and reveal the dark side of the corporate sector.
The ombudsperson also observed that the chief people officer neglected his official duty, and instead of investigating the authenticity of the allegations of harassment, vulgar language and derogatory remarks levelled against the CEO, he favoured the CEO and directed the complainant to visit him on a daily basis.
