The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday issued notices to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) director general and interior secretary on a petition filed by five FIA assistant directors. The petition sought the court’s intervention in the matter of seniorities awarded to the FIA officials by the authorities. The court had already given a stay order for the case of the up-gradation of 90 FIA assistant directors. However, the petitioners, who joined the FIA two decades ago, said the FIA has issued an illegal seniority list of its official which jeopardised their seniorities. They stated that many junior officials, who had been working as their subordinates, had been given seniority over the petitioners. A single-member bench comprising of Justice Noor-ul-Haq Qureshi was hearing the case filed by the assistant directors through their counsel Advocate Safdar Shaheen Pirzada. The petitioners cited the Federation of Pakistan Interior secretary and FIA DG as respondents. The petitioner’s counsel told the court that the investigation agency prepared a seniority list of assistant directors on July 20th 2009, according to which his clients were eligible for being granted seniority. However, according to a revised list issued on January 20th, 2012, the petitioners were declared ineligible. Pirzada said not awarding the petitioners seniority had destroyed their careers. They requested the court to direct the respondents to declare the seniority list of July 2009 as final and conclusive instead of the list circulated during January 2012. In another case, IHC Justice Riaz Ahmad Khan on Wednesday once again issued notices to opposition leader and National Assembly Member Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan in a Rs10 billion libel suit filed by the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) for damaging the repute of the organisation.
