Home dept reverses dismissal of rescue official

DG declared performance of district emergency officer unsatisfactory

LAHORE:

Additional Chief Secretary Home Momin Ali Agha has set aside an order issued by Rescue 1122 DG Rizwan Naseer for the removal of a district emergency officer.

District Emergency Officer Asif Rahim was reinstated in Bahawalpur with all the back benefits.

Agha asserted that Naseer had ignored the orders of the Lahore High Court that no official of Rescue 1122 should be terminated from job without a proper inquiry under the Peeda Act. He said the order for removal from service of Rahim had been issued while ignoring the directions of the additional secretary home. Agha asserted in his order that neither a charge sheet was issued nor a 'regular inquiry' conducted against the official. Fact finding probes were construed by the DG as “inquiries” in the show cause notice and dismissal orders.

He also asserted that the grounds of inefficiency and poor performance did not stand as the official was regularised in July 2010.

Naseer had alleged that Asif Rahim's performance had emained unsatisfactory. He was found guilty of misconduct, inefficiency and negligence. The DG.had also quoted comments of the commissioner Bahawalpur against his role in an incident involving the death of a rescuer.

While pleading his case before the ACS, Rahim contended that the inquiries as mentioned in the show cause notice were not those mentioned in the Peeda Act but probes conducted by junior officers.

The official appointed in 2005 alleged that the director general had terminated his contractual services in 2007, against which he had filed an appeal and had been reinstated. The director general, while issuing the reinstatement order, had imposed penalties without following the procedure laid down in the act, he alleged.

He also said that he was a coronavirus specialist from the University of Health Sciences.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th, 2020.