Dasti challenges MEPCO chairman’s appointment

‘Guftar Ahmad working despite Supreme Court remarks’.

MULTAN:

Peoples Party MNA Jamshed Dasti has challenged the appointment of the Multan Electric Power Company (MEPCO) chairman on contract basis following his retirement in 2008.

In a petition moved in Justice Farrukh Irfan Khan’s court at the Multan bench of the Lahore High Court, MNA Dasti submitted that MEPCO chairman Guftar Ahmad had been working on contract basis in violation of a recent Supreme Court verdict outlawing re-hiring of retired government officials on contract basis. He said Ahmed was appointed MEPCO chairman on contract basis in December 2008. He requested the court to declare as illegal his appointment as MEPCO chairman and issue directives for fresh hiring for the post.

On Monday, Justice Farrukh Irfan Khan issued summons for Ahmad, directing him to appear before the court along with contract documents and other relevant record.

A MEPCO spokesman, Jamshed Khan Niazi, told The Express Tribune that Ahmad was appointed MEPCO chairman on a three-year contract. He said the contract would expire in December 2011.

Talking to The Tribune, Dasti said he could no longer wait for the government to sack Ahmad and had to move court to ensure that Supreme Court’s verdict was implemented in letter and spirit.

Hearing the Hajj corruption scam on January 27, 2011, an eight-member bench of the Supreme Court had observed that re-appointment of retired government officials was wrong. The bench had directed the government not to re-employ retired officials on contract basis. It had further observed that prima facie such re-employments were a violation of Section 14 of the Civil Servant Act of 1873 as well as instruction contained in the ESTACODE.

Following the verdict, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani had terminated the services of 26 senior officers, among them ambassadors, members of the Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) and police who were working on contract.

MEPCO supplies electricity to an area of 105,000 square kilometres.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, July 12^th, 2011.