RAWALPINDI, Feb 6: The Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench on Friday stopped the Punjab government from inducting new teaching and non-teaching staff in Attock after the district nazim moved the court against the decision.

Justice Abdul Shakoor Paracha issued provisional status quo order directing the district coordination officer (DCO) not to proceed with appointing new staff on posts already occupied by contractual employees till disposal of the petition.

Before adjourning the hearing, the court also directed the DCO to submit comments in response to the petition of the district nazim, Tahir Sadiq, within three weeks.

Making the provincial government through the chief secretary, DCO and the executive district officer (education) respondents, the petitioner maintained that in 2006 and 2007 the district government had appointed over 4,000 teaching and on-teaching staff strictly on merit on a five years’ contract. However, on January 25, the provincial government through an advertisement sought applications for filling the posts after showing them vacant.

The petitioner’s counsel, Advocate Tanveer Iqbal Khan, informed the court that the advertisement had asked the contractual teachers to apply afresh for the posts before they completed their five-year contract period, creating panic among them. He said the government had also reduced the maximum age limit from 45 years to 35, making many working teachers ineligible for the job.

The nazim, as head of the district government under the Punjab Local Government Ordinance, issued executive orders to the DCO and the

EDO to stop making fresh applications on the posts but his directives were not heeded to, he added.

He alleged that the Punjab government’s move to target the teachers was aimed to politically victimise the district nazim.

In another identical petition filed by eight working contractual teachers, the court issued readmission notices to the respondents. The petitioners had maintained that they were being harassed and forced to reapply for the posts they had been working on.

Justice Paracha in another case disposed of a writ petition of a union council nazim after the district officer solid waste management, Dr Mazhar, assured the court that he would take back his orders directing the sanitary workers to report to a UC councillor instead of the nazim.

The nazim of UC 27, Muslim Town, Azhar Iqbal Satti in his petition had alleged that MNA Hanif Abbasi had pressed the DO to politically victimise him by barring 30 sanitary workers from collecting waste from the UC creating problems for the residents.