Appointment of pharmacists: Lahore High Court vacates stay order issued earlier

‘Those dismissed must make regular employees party to petitions’.

LAHORE:

The Lahore High Court on Thursday vacated a stay order on the appointment of new pharmacists and allowed the Punjab government and the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) to finalise the appointment of candidates who passed written tests and interviews.

The court passed the order while hearing petitions filed by 68 dismissed pharmacists, ad hoc and contract employees in grades 16 to 22, for their regularisation and challenging the new appointments made in their place by the PPSC. The court had stayed the new appointments at an earlier hearing.

However, on Thursday, Justice Umer Ata Bandial observed, “What’s the fault of the new pharmacists, who were appointed on merit after tests and interviews through the PPSC? They should not be stopped from joining jobs which they got by their ability ... The new people should not suffer due to the present legal dispute.”  However, the judge expressed surprise that the chief minister had regularised some pharmacists and not others. The judge directed the dismissed pharmacists to make pharmacists who had been regularised by the chief minister a party to the petitions. He then adjourned proceedings till December 8.

The petitioners have asked the court to direct the chief secretary, health secretary and PPSC to give them regular jobs. They said that the chief minister had exercised his power to regularise ad hoc or contract employees on a selective basis.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 25^th, 2011.