PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday struck down the recent appointment of 114 Class-IV employees to Nowshera district’s health department declaring them illegal.

Chief Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Mussarat Hilali gave the verdict by accepting a petition of Sareer Khan and five others, who had insisted that the appointments in question were made on political grounds.

In the short order, the bench hinted at referring the matter to the National Accountability Bureau for probing if the health department’s officials received bribe for those appointments.

Petitioners had claimed recruitment were made on political grounds

The detailed judgment will be released afterward.

Khushdil Khan, lawyer for the petitioners, contended that the appointments were made in Feb 2018 without fulfilling the ‘codal formalities’.

He said as the general elections were approaching, appointments were made in Nowshera, which was the hometown of then chief minister Pervez Khattak and that most of them were made in the Rasheed Shaheed Memorial Satellite Hospital, Pabbi.

The lawyer said under the KP Civil Servants (Appointments, Promotion and Transfer) Rules, 1989, the BPS 1-4 appointments should be made on the recommendations of the Departmental Selection Committee through the district employment exchange concerned and if a district didn’t have the office of the employment exchange, the appointments should be made after advertising the posts in leading newspapers.

Mr Khushdil, who is also an MPA, argued that the appointees were not registered with the employment exchange, while their posts were also not advertised.

He said the Pabbi hospital in question was upgraded from C category to B category, but the appointments were made in haste, on political grounds and without the upgradation of the building.

The counsel for the appointees contended that their clients were poor people and therefore, they shouldn’t be removed.

He said after the filing of the petition, the court had issued a stay order due to which for last many months, the district health officer had stopped the payment of their salaries.

The lawyer said his clients were mostly appointed to the posts of watchmen, office assistants and others.

SALARY ATTACHED: A high court bench ordered the attachment of the salary of the Fata secretariat’s additional secretary over his failure to appear before it in a case despite issuance of repeated orders.

Justice Qalandar Ali Khan and Justice Abdul Shakoor ruled that the official’s salary should remain attached until he appeared before the court.

The bench was hearing a petition filed by resident of Mohmand tribal district Idress Khan, who challenged the construction of a cadet college on his 680 kanals land in Mohammad Gatt village without his consent.

The bench extended a stay order issued earlier against the construction work until next hearing, whose schedule will be fixed later.

Sanaullah Khan and Taimur Khan, counsel for the petitioner, said the Mohmand Rifles were constructing the cadet college through the Frontier Works Organisation after illegally occupying his client’s land without paying compensation.

They said the FWO had also demolished some markets and houses put up on the land.

The counsel said hundreds of trees planted on the land were also chopped down and thus causing damage to the environment.

They requested the court to direct the government to compensate the petitioner for the land.

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2018