PLRA may invite LHC’s ire for ignoring orders

Authority is using delaying tactics to restore 449 SCOs.

LAHORE: The Punjab Land Record Authority (PLRA) may incur the Lahore High Court’s fury for creating hurdles in the implementation of an order which restored 449 service centre officials (SCOs). These officials had been removed on charges of not meeting the requirements for the post.

Justice Ali Baqar Najafi of the LHC, on a petition filed by SCOs, ordered their restoration in an interim order.

PLRA, however, is trying to use delaying tactics in implementing the order. Last week, an additional director finance of PLRA ordered the service centre in charges not to give official letters to these officers if they turned up to rejoin.

The document is a requirment to restore the SCOs’ salaries accounts at the Bank of Punjab.

The order, circulated through a Whatsapp message, also directed SCIs to erase the names of these SCOs from the lists of employees. This would result in these officials being removed from the payroll of PLRA before the banks.

On the other hand, no SCO has, thus far, visited any service centre to rejoin as they could not get a certified copy of the court orders.

Justice Najafi suspended the notification, dated March 28, 2017, of the PLRA director general and directed 449 SCOs to join their jobs at their respective Computerised Land Record Centres (CLRAs).

The judge announced the interim order on a writ petition filed by the (terminated) officials through Advocate Ahsan Bhoon. The LHC judge directed the PLRA to advertise the remaining 145 vacancies and said these spots should be filled through the National Testing Service.

The PLRA had already advertised all 594 posts of SCOs and the last date to apply is May 13. The order of Justice Najafi also put a question mark over this advertisement. However, PLRA has not issued any amended advertisement in accordance with the LHC order.

If PLRA does not allow these restored SCOs to rejoin, it will be tantamount to contempt of court and aggrieved SCOs can move a petition for the same.

In their plea through Advocate Bhoon, the SCOs told the court they were forced to reappear in an internal evaluation test by PLRA.

According to them, no service centre in charges (SCIs), appointed along with them through the same advertisement, had been terminated from service.

They alleged that they were being victimised in a tug of war between the incumbent DG and Maqbool Dhawla, former deputy director of the project.

Additional directors of land records are also reportedly being victimised by PLRA and forced to function despite weeks-long delays in renewal of their contracts.

On the other hand, in a meeting held two weeks back, the incumbent PLRA DG warned these ADLRs he would only extend the contracts of half of them.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 8^th, 2017.