PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Monday issued a notice to the provincial chief secretary seeking his response to a petition against the caretaker government’s decision against regularising the services of the health department’s contractual employees, who were appointed under the Peoples Primary Health Initiative.

The government was also directed by a bench consisting of Justice Syed Mohammad Attique Shah and Justice Wiqar Ahmad to maintain status quo on the matter and not to act against health workers.

The court issued the order after preliminary hearing into the petition filed by Mohammad Shakeel and five other PPHI employees against the June 8, 2023, decision of the caretaker cabinet that their services won’t be regularised.

The petitioners, who work as paramedics and Class-IV employees in health facilities, contended that the impugned decision went against the Peshawar High Court’s orders for their regularisation as well as the rejection of the provincial government’s appeal against it by the Supreme Court.

Asks it to maintain status quo on matter

They said that earlier, a summary was moved for their regularisation during the last government, but as the provincial assembly was dissolved, the summary couldn’t be approved.

The petitioners, however, said that the said summary was replaced with another one in an illegal manner and certain facts were concealed from the caretaker cabinet, which declined to support the proposed regularisation.

The petitioners requested the court to declare illegal and unconstitutional the decision of the caretaker cabinet in respect of their regularisation of contract employees of the health department.

They also requested the court to declare that the caretaker government had no power to decide the issues of regularisation of petitioners being permanent in terms of the Supreme Court’s rules of business and dictums.

They further requested the court to direct the respondents including the chief secretary, secretaries of finance, health and establishment department, to restore the earlier detailed summary for regularisation of the contract employees of the health department.

Advocate Mukhtar Ahmad Maneri appeared for the petitioners and said that his clients were initially inducted in the PPHI project of the health department and were performing their duties until the time when their services were dispensed with by the government.

He said that the petitioners and several other employees had moved the high court against the said dispensation order and requested for their regularisation.

The counsel said that the high court had on May 15, 2015, accepted that petition.

He said that the government had challenged that judgement before the Supreme Court, which maintained the high court’s judgement on Feb 22, 2017.

The lawyer said that the government filed a civil review petition before the Supreme Court but the decision on it was pending.

He argued that during the hearing before the apex court, the government was directed to finalise the summary for regularisation of the employees of the PPHI, which was accelerated and finally taken to the level of the chief secretary to approve the same on Dec 27, 2022.

Mr Maneri said that the said summary was also approved by the then chief minister, who directed the health department to place the same before the provincial cabinet for approval.

He said that in the meantime, the provincial assembly was dissolved on Jan 18, 2023, by the governor on the advice of the then chief minister and the summary for regularisation could not be placed before the then cabinet.

The lawyer argued that to the utter surprise of the petitioners, the health secretary prepared another summary wherein it was mentioned that if the caretaker cabinet decided about the regularisation of those employees, it could not be materialised due to a lack of proper legislation.

He contended that the caretaker cabinet overstepped its mandate by deciding against regularising the services of the petitioners and other employees.

The counsel contended that the decision in question could only be taken by an elected government and not by a caretaker setup, which was in place to perform day-to-day functions and not to take major policy decisions.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2023