Rejecting the plea of former defence secretary Lt General (r) Naeem Khalid Lodhi seeking interim relief by cancellation of the notification of Nargis Sethi’s appointment as acting defence secretary and to restore him to his position, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday directed the president and establishment secretary not to appoint any other officer to the post currently assigned to Sethi. The court maintained the status quo of the defence secretary’s post until the final decision on the writ petition filed by Lt Gen (r) Lodhi against his dismissal. Issuing the order, the court disposed of the civil miscellaneous application filed by Lodhi and adjourned the hearing of his writ petition.
Lt Gen (r) Lodhi was removed from the post of defence secretary by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in January, after which he moved the IHC against his dismissal and filed two petitions seeking to reverse the orders. A single member bench, comprising Justice Azim Khan Afridi, was hearing his two petitions filed through his counsel FK Butt citing President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, the cabinet secretary, establishment secretary and acting defence secretary as respondents.
In the civil miscellaneous application, the court ordered that on the basis of the notification dated 11/1/2012, the petitioner had been relieved of the charge of defence secretary and the post had already been assigned to Nargi Sethi in an acting capacity, so the petitioner’s plea for reinstatement on the strength of an interim order could not be accepted. Lt Gen (r) Lodhi’s counsel submitted that his client was terminated by the prime minister without any prior notice and requested the court to cancel the termination orders. He also requested the court to cancel the notification of the appointment of Sethi as acting defence secretary. However, Deputy Attorney General Tariq Mahmood Jahangiri contended that Lt Gen (r) Lodhi was working on a two-year contract and according to the rules for contractual employees, the government could terminate them whenever it wanted by paying them a month’s salary in advance. The counsel for Lt Gen (r) Lodhi contended that the premier terminated his client with a view to clear the way for further illegal steps to arbitrarily remove the army chief and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) director general (DG) for the fulfilment of his political agenda “to ruin this country”.