PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday suspended a notification from the provincial government about the appointment of the chairman of the Board of Governors (BoG) of the medical teaching institution Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) and issued a contempt notice to the provincial health secretary.

A bench consisting of Justice Ijaz Anwar and Justice Syed Arshad Ali fixed a date of July 4 for the next hearing on the matter, with direction to the health secretary to submit his reply as to why the contempt of court proceedings should not be initiated against him for willfully violating the order of the court.

The bench also issued notice to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief secretary in the case.

The bench was hearing a contempt of court petition filed by the former chairman of the KTH BoG Dr Umar Ayub Khan, who stated that the high court had issued a clear order on June 13 to restrain the government from taking any adverse action against him and also not to pass any final order on the matter regarding the expected removal of the petitioner and appointment of new chairman of the board on the recommendation of search and nomination council.

Bench also issues contempt notice to health secretary for violating earlier order

However, he said that after said order was issued, the provincial government issued back-dated notifications purportedly of June 11, through which the petitioner was removed from the post.

A situation emerged on Tuesday as earlier in the day when the bench took up for a preliminary hearing of the contempt petition, it orally announced an order restraining the respondents including the health secretary from filling the post of the chairman of BoG and adjourned the hearing to July 4.

However, after some time the lawyers representing the petitioner approached the bench and produced a notification purportedly issued on June 20 through which Taimoor Shah had been appointed as the said BoG’s chairman by the chief minister under Section 5 of MTI Reforms Act, 2015.

The lawyers contended that this one was also a back-dated notification aimed at frustrating the order of the high court. They said that on June 13, the bench had in clear terms stopped the government from issuing any final order.

“By issuing the said notification, prima facie the order of this court dated 13.6.2024 has been violated and has thereby undermined the authority of this court,” the bench observed.

“In such circumstances, the said notification dated 20.6.204 is suspended, contempt of court notice be issued to the secretary, government of KP health department,” the bench ordered.

Barrister Babar Shahzad Imran, Rahmanullah Shah and Habib Anwar appeared for the petitioner and stated while hearing the main petition of Dr Umer Ayub, it was brought to the notice of the court on June 13 that a search and nomination council was working on the appointment of members of MTI, BoGs.

They said that the advocate general present in the court had informed that so far no order adverse to the interest of the petitioner had been passed and the petition was premature.

They stated that the court had issued a pre-admission notice to the respondents including the provincial health department for filing of comments and had also directed that the search and nomination council may proceed with the short-listing of members for MTI BoGs, however, no final order should be passed.

They claimed that the said order of the court had been violated as a back-dated order of June 11 had been issued whereby the petitioner had been removed from the post of BoG chairman of KTH.

The respondents in the contempt petition are chief minister Ali Amin Gandapur, the provincial health minister Qasim Ali Shah, the health secretary Mahmood Aslam, advocate general Shah Faisal Uthmankhel and the section officer MTIs, Salimullah Khan.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2024