Sri Lanka All Telecommunication Employees Union yesterday filed a Fundamental Rights petition in Supreme Court seeking an order restraining the Treasury Secretary from taking any steps to divest the shares held by him in Sri Lanka Telecom PLC.

The SLT with 4,697 employees is currently operating with 21 trade unions and it has become a burden to the country with frequent workers protests and strikes making it difficult to the management steer the public enterprise on a real profitable path.

Sri Lanka Telecom Group (SLT Group) is to under go restructuring process following the government's decision to eliminate its inefficiency unproductivity and less contribution for economic growth with massive overheads, although it has been considered as a profit making institution.

Although SLT is making profits, its profitability ratio is very much lower than its competitors operating in the country.

The average profitability ratio of SLT during past five years was around 6.52 percent whereas the Dialog Axiata PLC, its main competitor maintains profitability ratio of 15.2 percent