KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has expressed resentment against the Karachi Development Authority (KDA) for ousting its low-salaried staff through a verbal order after hiring them on work-charge basis for a period of around nine years.

A two-judge constitutional bench of the SHC, comprising Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha and Justice Nisar Ahmed Bhanbhro, observed that the engagement of the petitioners was discontinued by stopping their salaries without giving them a notice of termination as per clause 2 of the engagement order.

Such a termination being verbal in nature was not permissible under any of the laws of the country regulating services and such an act could not go unnoticed, it added. The bench made these observations during the hearing of a set of petitions filed by dozens of work-charged employees/daily wage earners of the KDA seeking regularisation of their services.

The lawyers for the petitioners argued that their clients were engaged in BS-1 to BS-4 in the KDA on a temporary basis between 2004 and 2009 and on completion of their three-year probation period, the KDA extended all service benefits to them as were available to regular employees. Thereafter, they demanded for the regularisation of services, which annoyed the KDA, resulting in the stoppage of their salaries, they added.

But the KDA denied it and asserted that the services of the petitioners were hired on a temporary basis by the defunct City District Government Karachi as per the terms and conditions of the engagement letter. Their services were to be dispensed with without assigning any reason on a 24-hour notice, it explained.

The bench in it order noted that as per the record, the petitioners were engaged in the KDA on a temporary basis as daily-wage earners/work-charge establishment and the engagement order contained a specific clause that they were engaged on work-charge basis and could be terminated on a 24-hour notice without assigning any reasons.

The bench also said that continuation of the services of low-salaried employees hired on work-charge basis for a period of about nine years followed by their ouster through a verbal order could not be left unchecked as it resulted into the worst sort of the exploitation on the part of an organisation like the KDA.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2025