The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the government to deliver the delayed salaries of lady health workers to their residences by midnight.
A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, heard the case pertaining to the non-payment of salaries to health workers.
During the hearing, the deputy attorney general told the court that the amount of salaries for the third quarter of the year had been deposited in the accounts of the provincial governments.
In response, the chief justice said that the government had only fulfilled its responsibilities by depositing the amount, and had not done anyone a favor. The chief justice ordered the deputy attorney general that the health workers’ salaries should be delivered to their residences by midnight, before Saturday.
Responding to the orders, the deputy attorney general said that it might be difficult to deposit the salaries in the accounts concerned, as officials had been working until late on Thursday. Upon which, the chief justice directed the deputy attorney general to read out Article 9 of the constitution to the relevant officials. Article 9, which covers the security of a person, states: “No person shall be deprived of life or liberty save in accordance with law.”
During the hearing, petitioner Bushra Arain requested the court to send to jail those responsible for the non-payment of the health workers’ salaries.
Lady Health Workers have been protesting for months against the non-payment of their salaries and against the government’s failure to regularize their services across the country. They had demanded that 130,400 members of the LHW program be regularized, and their salaries paid.
