PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday issued a stay order suspending a government order to terminate the deputation of 16 officers to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Culture and Tourism Authority and stopped their repatriation to their parent departments.

A bench consisting of Justice Ijaz Anwar and Justice Kamran Hayat Miankhel issued notices to the respondents, including the provincial chief secretary, secretaries of culture and tourism, finance and establishment departments, and others, seeking their response to a petition jointly filed by those 16 officers against the termination of their respective deputation period by the culture and tourism secretary.

It declared that implementation of the impugned order issued on July 27 would remain suspended until further orders.

The petitioners, including KPCTA general manager Ajmal Khan and 15 other employees, contended that in the impugned notification the competent authority (secretary culture) had ordered their repatriation to their respective departments without assigning any reason.

Issues notices over cancellation of posting of officials to tourism body

They alleged that the impugned order was issued on behest of the adviser to the caretaker chief minister who wanted to accommodate his favourites on the said posts.

The petitioners requested the court to set aside the impugned order of July 27 by declaring it void, illegal and without lawful authority.

Advocate Ziaur Rehman Tajik appeared for the petitioners and said that his clients were civil servants in different departments of provincial and federal governments and were working on deputation against different posts from BPS-16 to BPS-19 in the KPCTA at the request of the authority being the “borrowing” department.

He argued that the period of deputation could be terminated at any stage by the lending department as per the relevant rules and the “borrowing” department had no authority to cancel the deputation before completion of the specified period of time when the deputationists was not guilty of misconduct, incompetency or corruption.

The counsel referred to a notification of the establishment department of June 20, 2000, and said it was clearly mentioned in the notification that the reason must be mentioned for repatriation of the staff to the parent department by the borrowing department.

He contended that the impugned order was not issued in public interest but was issued on the instructions of the advisor to the caretaker chief minister on culture and tourism.

Mr Tajik claimed that previously, he directed the KPCTA director-general to accommodate some of his “favourites” in the authority but on his refusal, the impugned order was issued.

He also referred to the KP Culture and Tourism Act, 2019, contending that the management, general control and administration of the authority had been vested on the board of directors, whereas the impugned order was issued by the culture secretary, who had no authority to issue that.

The lawyer argued that a caretaker government was only empowered to run day-to-day administration of the government and could not take the decisions of far-reaching effect and that such decisions should only be taken by an elected government.

He added that a caretaker government could not make any policy decisions and permanent measures, including posting and transfer of government servants.

Mr Tajik said the Election Commission of Pakistan, through a notification issued on Jan 22, 2023, restrained the caretaker government from all kinds of postings, transfers and appointments and the impugned order was issued in violation to that notification.

Published in Dawn, August 3rd, 2023