Unpaid allowances: Former judge seeks Rs5.41m from ECP

Petitioner was not paid for perks during his tenure in election tribunal

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has sought the comments of the election commission on a petition by a former election tribunal member seeking Rs5.41 million in dues.

The petitioner has gone to the court over his unpaid wages during his tenure of 26 months in the Faisalabad election tribunal.

Javed Rashid Mehboobi alleged the tribunal did not pay him the judicial allowance of Rs14,000, special judicial allowance Rs83,040, utility allowance, and transport monetisation allowance of Rs95,910 per month during his tenure.

The allowances, he said, amounted to Rs5.4 million and the Election Commission of Pakistan should be directed to pay him the due amount as well as damages for delaying the payment.

On Monday, Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah heard the case. He appointed Advocate Hafiz Tariq Nasim as amicus curie in the matter and issued notices to the ECP, Punjab Advocate General and the Attorney General of Pakistan for submitting their replies on the matter.

After his retirement as the district session judge of Grade 21, Mehboobi was appointed to the election tribunal in Grade 22 by the ECP on the recommendations of the LHC chief justice.

The election tribunals decide disputes arising out of general elections. The petitioner assumed charge on June 3, 2013 and continued till August 31, 2015.

The petitioner contended that the only post in BPS-22 in the district judiciary was of the registrar of the LHC.  The corresponding civil servants, he argued, for an election tribunal in Grade-22 should be considered as the registrar and all allowances available to the registrar should be available to the tribunal.

Before his retirement as the sessions judge in October 2012, he was serving on BPS-21 and getting judicial allowance of Rs14,000, special judicial allowance of Rs77,640 and utility allowance of Rs8,000 with a gross salary amounting to Rs222,635.

As member of the tribunal in Faisalabad, Mehboobi said he had sent requests to the ECP secretary several times for inclusion of allowances in his salary since June 2013. The ECP, he alleged, had no authority to withhold any perks or privileges available to a retired judges in BPS-22.

The petitioner contended that the retired district judges performing judicial functions in other establishments like the federal service tribunal were also getting such allowances as admissible to the serving sessions judges.

He added that he was also entitled to a total amount of Rs5,411,719 in arrears by the ECP that included all the pending allowances.

He requested the court to direct the ECP to pay him the due amount and also compensate him for the delays in payment.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20^th, 2016.