The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday summoned top officials of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to explain why a group of senior nurses was denied promotion.
Anwar Sultana and five other nurses of CDA hospital filed a petition through their counsel, requesting the court to direct the authority to promote them to the next grade, “since they are qualified for it”. During the hearing of the case, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui issued notices to CDA Chairman Farkhand Iqbal, member administration, executive director and director human resources and sought their reply on June 6.
The petitioners’ counsel, Babar Awan, contended that his clients joined the hospital as senior nurses in December, 2008 and they have been working in grade-16 ever since they joined this profession in 1994.
He maintained that despite fulfilling the criteria set by CDA Employees (Service) Regulation 1992, the senior nurses were still they were not being promoted. Awan argued his clients were being denied their right, adding that the first batch of the nurses had been promoted to grade-17.
In August 1991, Awan said, the finance division introduced changes in order to provide better career opportunities to the nursing cadre under “The improvement in service structure of federal government health services personnel”. He informed the court according to rules for the nursing cadre, 25 per cent posts in BPS-16 were to be upgraded.
The counsel for the petitioner said he had also filed a petition before Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench in 2010 over the same issue. The court had directed CDA chairman to decide the appeal expeditiously in accordance with the law. “But no steps have been taken by respondents to resolve the issue despite court orders,” he said.
Meanwhile, in a separate hearing the IHC Chief Justice Iqbal Hameedur Rehman directed Secretary Capital Administration and Development Division Imtiaz Inayat Elahi and Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Executive Director Prof. Mehmood Jamal to decide an appeal for higher salaries for nurses within one month.
The nurses had requested the court to direct CDA to increase their salaries after they were promoted to BPS-17. Robina Kausar and four other nurses filed a petition seeking the implementation of actualisation in view of their promotion.
Counsel Hamid Hussain said his clients were promoted to grade-17 in April last year, with 13 others nurses, but their salaries were not commensurate with the higher grade. They have been working in PIMS since 1990. He informed the court that his clients approached CDA in April, but officials did not pay any heed to their appeal.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 24th, 2012.
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