The Supreme Court (SC) has admitted for hearing a petition filed to address the issue of the regularisation of over 150,000 daily wagers and contract employees against the rules – by method of relaxing their age – by the previous PPP led government cabinet committee.
The court has issued notices to federal government, the NHA chairman, secretary communication and the employees and sought a reply from them within three weeks.
Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Jawwad S Khawaja has remarked, “Cabinet committee was not entitled to do this. How and under what law has the committee done all this?”
A three-member bench of SC presided over by CJP Jawwad S Khawaja took up for hearing an appeal plea filed by NHA accounts officer Nawab Ali against a high court decision on Monday. As many as eight petitions have been filed in the SC in this connection.
Abdul Rehman Siddiqui, counsel for the petitioner, told the court that during the erstwhile tenure of PPP led government, former Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani constituted a cabinet committee under Syed Khurshid Shah in 2011 and regularised about 150,000 employees in defiance of rules and regulations.
While no approved posts existed in the different institutions and department of the government nor was any budget sanctioned on this count. Despite this, over 2,000 employees were regularised in NHA. In the other departments about 150,000 persons were regularised. The cabinet committee was not authorised to regularise these employees. Salaries were earlier paid to these employees out of the development fund. Now the government has been changed and the disbursement of salary to these employees has become a problem.
He argued that petition was filed in Islamabad High Court on this count and Justice Shaukat Siddiqui declared this order regarding the regularisation of these 150,000 employees illegal. However the decision given in our favour was nullified on an intra court appeal, he added. We have come here in this regard.
The SC remarked, “We cannot issue a stay order against it for the time being. We want to hear the parties concerned first.”
The court admitted the petition for hearing and issued notices to the parties concerned.
