KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday sought comments from Interior Ministry and National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) on a petition challenging the result for recruitment in NACTA.
A division bench headed by Justice Irfan Saadat Khan heard a petition of a citizen, Muhammad Shoaib, who assailed NACTA for not considering even a single candidate out of thousands for the post of assistant private secretary in the department.
The petitioner through his lawyer Advocate Nadeem Shaikh submitted a petition saying that NACTA had issued an advertisement, asking the candidates to download the application form along with the deposit slip and to pay the prescribed fee of Rs 300 each.
Shoaib said that following all the instructions and after completing all the formalities, he had applied for the post of assistant private secretary (BPS-16) and appeared in the PTS examination.
Advocate Shaikh argued that his client was confident of passing the exam but in the result that was announced after much delay, he was shocked to see that NACTA had mentioned that no one including the petitioner qualified according to the criteria set by the establishment division for the post of assistant private secretary.
Shoaib informed the judges that he had served legal notice to NACTA director but did not get a reply and in the meantime, a new advertisement for the above-mentioned post was issued.
The petitioner said that from all over Pakistan, thousands of candidates applied for the above-mentioned post but the authorities claimed that none of them qualified according to the criteria set by the establishment division. The result was also removed from the website, providing NACTA’s malafide intentions.
Shoaib said that the total strength of NACTA was 811 while only 137 persons were employed at the time of filing of the petition.
“It seems that the NACTA published the said advertisement to usurp money from the innocent citizens of Pakistan and make a joke of their needs,” he lamented.
The petitioner asked the court to direct NACTA to make appointments purely on merit. The court was further requested to direct the Interior Ministry to inquire into the matter and submit its report within the prescribed time limit.
