Punjab Finance Secretary Tariq Bajwa, Punjab Schools Secretary Aslam Janjua and Punjab Local Government Secretary Kizhar Hiyat appeared before the Lahore High Court on Wednesday and assured the court that the petitioner teachers would be given Big City Allowance within seven days in compliance of the court orders.
Justice Shiekh Azmat Saeed had summoned the aforementioned secretaries on a contempt petition filed by Government High School Raiwind Road Senior Headmaster Abdul Rasheed and other teachers, submitting that they had not been paid Big City Allowance despite court orders.
Earlier, the court had denied granting the three secretaries time on their request, observing that it was a matter of contempt of court and the teachers had already waited a lot for the compliance of the court orders. The judge reprimanded the secretaries for ignoring the court orders and denying teachers their rights. Upon this, Finance Secretary Bajwa assured the court that the court orders would be complied with within seven days. Later, the judge deferred the matter until June 23. The petitioners had submitted that local government secretary and community development had issued a notification on June 29, 2005 with regard to provision of Big City Allowance to all teachers serving within Lahore, but the said allowance was not paid to the teachers.
The petitioners counsel said that the court had directed the secretary finance to issue notification for the grant of the allowance on Nov 14, 2008, however, the secretary had filed an intra-court appeal against that order. The intra-court appeal was dismissed, he said, and the order of the single bench attained finality as no any other appeal was pending before LHC or the Supreme Court.
The petitioner said that he approached the court against non-compliance of court orders but the court disposed of the plea after a law officer told the court that the order had been complied with. However, the petitioner submitted, the court orders were not implemented despite the assurance by the law officer, as the respondents had not issued notification for the same. The petitioner prayed the court to summon the respondents and start the contempt proceedings against them.
