ISLAMABAD, June 4: In a landmark move, the federal cabinet on Wednesday decided to regularise all contractual employees of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) with at least nine months’ service and all contractual employees of the federal government of Grade 1-15 with continuous two years’ service.

In another significant decision, the federal cabinet also approved the Stock Exchanges (Corporatisation, Demutualisation and Integration) Bill, 2008, to break monopolies of some brokers in the stock exchange market. The measure would enable the private sector to penetrate the country’s capital market. Under the proposed law, the registration fee for a stock exchange membership has been lowered to Rs10 million from Rs130 million at present.

Briefing newsmen after the meeting, Minister for Information Sherry Rahman said that State Bank of Pakistan had allowed printing of currency notes of Rs5 and Rs50 denominations and it had opposed printing of currency note of Rs10,000 denomination.

The cabinet also decided to set up a four-member cabinet committee comprising minister for law and justice, minister of finance, minister of labour manpower and deputy chairman of planning commission to review cases of higher cadres contractual employees engaged by the previous government.

Ms Rahman, when asked to comment on the contradiction in the government policy as it was on the one hand regularising contractual employees and, on the other, it was removing/replacing contractual employees of higher cadres, said that a committee had been formed on the advice of deputy chairman of planning commission Salman Farooqi, who himself was a contract employee of the government.

The meeting was presided over by Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani at the PM secretariat here.

The minister said that the finance minister had been directed to evaluate and apprise the next cabinet meeting of financial implications of the proposed regularisation of contractual government employees in lower grades.

A bill to amend the PPC was approved by the cabinet and it would provide a murder accused and accused of petty crimes bail if their cases are not decided in two and one years, respectively.

Ms Rahman said it had been proposed to further reduce the period to one year and six months, respectively, in case of a woman accused, but the amendment did not propose such concessions to hardened and dangerous criminals.

The cabinet approved a bill to further amend Representations of the People’s Act, 1976. The bill seeks to prevent frequent adjournments sought in election petitions to defeat the objective of the law.

The bill relates to the election petitions which remain undecided even for the whole term and the law will bind the election tribunal to decide the election petition within four months and hear the case without any gap. And if an adjournment of two days is allowed it would cost Rs10,000 to the petitioner.

Ms Rahman said that an amendment had also been approved in the Companies (Appointment of Legal Adviser) Act, 1974, to assist companies in legal matters faced by companies and to provide financial aid to young lawyers who face financial problems at early stage of their profession.

The cabinet also approved the winding up of Equity Participation Fund as the fund had become dormant and it was not serving any useful purpose for the economy of the county.

The cabinet formed a committee consisting of minister for shipping, a federal minister from Balochistan and minister for law and justice to review the Gwadar Port Authority’s Revised Bill for new corporate structure of the port, and directed it to submit its recommendations to the cabinet.