IHC voids PPP govt’s job regularisation

ISLAMABAD: A decision made by the cabinet sub-committee during the last PPP government regularising the services of contractual employees was declared as null and void by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday. Headed by Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah, the then cabinet sub-committee had regularised the services of thousands of contractual and daily wage employees in various ministries, corporations and autonomous bodies. Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the IHC in his short order observed that the employees were appointed without following rules and competitive process. He directed all institutions/organisations of the federal government to examine and verify the record of the regularised employees and endorse regularisation of services of only those employees who fulfilled the criteria in respect of educational qualification, experience, age and domicile. The decision was announced on a petition filed by senior employees of the National Highways Authority (NHA) against regularisation of contractual and daily wage employees. Counsel for the petitioners Tariq Mehmood Jehangiri told the court that all these employees had been appointed in disregard of educational qualification, age, experience, domicile, etc. These employees were inducted without any test or interview and later the cabinet sub-committee recommended regularisation of their services. He said the committee’s decision had been affecting the seniority of old employees. Mr Jehangiri said that around 350 employees were first inducted into the NHA allegedly in an illegal manner and later their services were regularised in an arbitrary manner. He produced the list of around 350 employees before the court and informed the court that around 90 people of them were from the constituency of former prime minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani in Multan, 60 from the constituency of Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah in Sukkur and the rest from electoral constituencies of some other lawmakers of the then PPP government. He informed the court that the NHA had been paying Rs12 billion per annum in salaries of these people from funds meant for road development projects. Referring to a recent Supreme Court judgment, Mr Jehangiri said that the apex court in the case of Employee Old Age Benefits Institution on March 17 had already declared the appointments of 238 employees as null and void. For the recently regularised employees, no posts were created before induction of these employees. The defence counsel said that if the cabinet sub-committee’s recommendations would be declared null and void, thousands of workers would lose their jobs. Upon which Justice Siddiqui remarked that “we have buried the doctrine of necessity”. He said everything should be done on merit. Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2014