The Sindh High Court (SHC) has denied the allegations that its chief justice Ahmed Ali Sheikh had relaxed the criteria of age and domicile for ensuring the appointment of his relatives in the paralegal staff of the district judiciary of the province.
A three-judge bench of the apex court, led by Justice Umar Ata Bandial, on November 22 had observed that seven clerks in Dadu district had been given age relaxation.
“Of the 7 Clerks selected (all of whom are overage), 6 are allegedly related to the competent authority,” its verdict read.
The SHC registrar clarified that assuming that the reference to “competent authority” meant the SHC CJ, it is submitted that none of the six persons were related to him by blood.
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“One person namely Asif Ali, son of Zulfiqar Shaikh, is a relative by marriage. The selection of Asif Ali was purely on the merits. His age relaxation was recommended by the district judge mentioning therein the reasons that he is highly competent in supply of accounts, finance and information technology as well as having software and hardware knowledge [in the] computer field as well as having fluency in English”, read the reply submitted by the SHC registrar to the SC.
The SC bench was hearing a constitutional petition filed by Ghulam Sarwar Qureshi requesting the apex court to declare the appointment of judges and other staff in the SHC as well as civil and additional district judges in the subordinate judiciary from 2017 till date as “illegal, mala fide, unlawful, ultra vires, unconstitutional and null and void, having no legal effect”.
The bench on Friday decided to form a committee to examine all appointments and submit a report within a month. However, the written order in this regard is still awaited.
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The SHC response stated that the selection committee of Dadu district had undertaken typing test of the eligible candidates. Of them, 77 candidates passed and then were interviewed. A total of 27 candidates were found fit for appointment and seven of them were overage as such as per the instruction contained in a letter dated May 5, 2000. Their matter was recommended by the district judge concerned for the relaxation of upper age limit mentioning the reasons including possession of Master’s degree in English, Bachelor’s degree, diploma in computer, experience of teaching, competency in accounts, fluency in English, etc.
On the appointment of Muhammad Afzal as bailiff, the SHC registrar replied that the allegation that he was related to the competent authority was incorrect.
“Prior to making the recommendation, the individual has already gone through the selection process and would have been appointed but for the age or domicile condition. The recommendation made by the district judges to the high court contains the reasons why age or domicile relaxation ought to be granted. Such recommendation is received in admin branch, which then processes the same through office note mentioning therein the reasons assigned by the district judge.
It is also stated that domicile relaxation is not without past precedent.
“For instance, through letter dated: 13-11-2015, [the ]request of District and Sessions Judge Tando Allahyar was considered and he was allowed to invite applications for post of Stenographers from candidates having domicile of Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas and Tando Allahyar,” it added.
The reply stated that domicile requirement has been relaxed only for the hiring of stenographers and for good reasons.
“The process of appointment of stenographers has always remained a great challenge for the reason that qualified/eligible candidates were not found for appointment having the domicile of the same district.”
It was further submitted that presently against a total sanctioned strength of 418, 72 posts of stenographers were lying vacant in different districts.
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A break-up of Sindh High Court hiring: PHOTO: EXPRESS NEWS
*The earlier version of this article published in the Express Tribune on 11.12.2021, mentioned that Justice (retd) Faisal Arab hails from Tando Allahyar. However, we are informed on behalf of Justice (retd) Faisal Arab that he hails, in fact, from Badin and owns land in Tando Muhammad Khan. The error is regretted and it is clarified there was never any intent to impute any misconduct against him in this regard.
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