Lahore High Court (LHC) Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed remarked on Thursday that among members of the bureaucracy, the tendency of disobeying courts’ orders was on the rise and it seems that stern action will have to be taken against some officers to inculcate in them respect of courts.
These remarks were passed by the judge while expressing his displeasure on non-implementation of court’s orders summoning the Punjab higher education secretary in the promotion case of head clerk of the education department despite court orders passed nine months ago. The judge was hearing a petition filed by Muhammad Faiz submitting that he was working as a head clerk in BPS-7 in the education department and applied for the post of assistant in BPS-14 in the department but despite qualifying, he was not promoted by the department.
He approached the LHC which ordered the education department to promote him, the petitioner added. Faiz filed a contempt of court petition stating that he had not been promoted and court orders were paid no importance by the secretary in his case. On Thursday, a college director appeared in court but could not satisfy the court in the matter. Therefore, the court summoned the secretary on the same day. At this stage, the judge expressed annoyance and sought the secretary’ presence in court on short notice to tell why he ignored court orders.
But on being summoned, Punjab Higher Education Secretary Haseeb Athar appeared in court and assured that orders would be implemented within seven days. The court observed that it seemed that bureaucracy had decided not to implement court orders and if it was so, the court would deal with it. Afterwards, the court disposed of the contempt petition.
