KARACHI, Feb 12: The Sindh High Court on Tuesday expressed extreme displeasure over the non-payment of salaries to over 32,000 employees of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation despite repeated orders, and warned the chief secretary and the provincial finance secretary of passing “appropriate orders” in case if they failed to submit a compliance report in court.
A division bench headed by Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi put off the matter to a date to be later fixed by the court’s office after Additional Advocate General Meeran Muhammed sought further time for submitting the compliance report of the court’s order passed on Jan 31.
The KMC employees union, Sajjan Union, had moved the court through a constitutional petition against the provincial government and the KMC administration for having not paid salaries and pensions to the employees for three months.
According to their counsel Advocate Nadeem Shaikh, the chief minister had announced that the provincial government would release Rs850.21 million every month for the payment of salaries to the KMC employees, but no funds were released for the past three months.
On Jan 31, the court directed the chief secretary and the finance secretary to take up the matter with the chief minister on a priority basis and submit a compliance report after resolving the issue within seven days.
Appointments in special education dept restrained
A division bench headed by Justice Faisal Arab restrained the secretary of the special education department from making any fresh appointments in the department till further orders.
The bench gave this direction while hearing a petition against the appointments made in the provincial special education department in violations of rules and regulations.
The petition was filed by Sajid Hussain with 46 other co-petitioners, including some special persons, who impleaded the chief secretary, the special education secretary and the provincial accountant general as the respondents.
The petitioners submitted in the petition that they had applied for appointment to different posts in the special education department on a contract basis following an advertisement published in various newspapers on Sept 11, 2012.
They said that they successfully went through the process of written tests and interviews, but were not issued appointment letters. On the contrary, they alleged, people who did not even appear in the tests and interviews were appointed in the special education department.
The petitioners stated that illegal appointments were made despite the fact that a so-called committee was also constituted by the special education secretary to ensure transparency in the entire process of recruitment.
They submitted that the respondent special education secretary appointed his blue-eyed boys in the department in contravention of the existing rules and regulations.
The petitioners prayed to the court to direct the respondents to cancel the illegal appointments and issue them appointment letters.
The bench put off the hearing to March 6 after Additional Advocate General Nafees Ahmed Usmani sought time for filing comments of the respondent government functionaries.
The court ordered: “In meanwhile, no fresh such appointments shall be made till the next date of hearing”.
ECP told to start re-description of NA seats proceedings
A division bench headed by Justice Maqbool Baqar directed the Election Commission of Pakistan to initiate proceedings for re-description of the National Assembly constituencies in Naushahro Feroze within 30 days.
The order came on a petition of Zafar Ali Shah who submitted that re-description of NA-211 and NA-212 Naushahro Feroze was required to be made by the ECP as a new tehsil, Mehrabpur, was included in Naushahro Feroze.
He prayed to the court to direct the ECP to initiate proceedings for re-description of the NA constituencies in Naushahro Feroze in view of the addition of a new tehsil in the district.
