Health sector: Court wants health workers’ jobs regularised
ISL's ruling orders for contractual employees of different projects of the health ministry to be made permanent.
ISLAMABAD:
Islamabad High Court’s ruling ordered for contractual employees of different projects of the health ministry to be made permanent. The devolution of the ministry under the 18th constitutional amendment resulted in the employees’ sacking on verbal orders.
Justice Muhammad Azam Khan Afridi ordered the government to regularise all contractual employees who, as per the Prime Minister’s policy, had completed their one year contractual term. He also directed disbursement of their payables and salaries since their termination from service within two months.
After the ministry’s devolution in June, almost 85 petitioners challenged their verbal termination from different projects, including the National Program for Prevention and Control of Hepatitis, National AIDS Control Program (NACP), National Program for Control of Blindness and Expanded Program on Immunisation (EPI).
The petition stated that since the ministry’s transfer to the provinces, they were verbally fired and their salaries stopped. They appealed to the court to regularise them under the Prime Minister’s policy and pay their outstanding dues. The court, after hearing the arguments of both the plaintiff and defendant, disposed of the petitions and ordered the staffs’ regularisation.
Since the enactment of the 18th Amendment, the health sector became a provincial subject and all the national health programs were decentralised except for EPI, NACP, National Tuberculosis Program, National Malaria Control Program and National Hepatitis Control Program.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 15th, 2011.
Islamabad High Court’s ruling ordered for contractual employees of different projects of the health ministry to be made permanent. The devolution of the ministry under the 18th constitutional amendment resulted in the employees’ sacking on verbal orders.
Justice Muhammad Azam Khan Afridi ordered the government to regularise all contractual employees who, as per the Prime Minister’s policy, had completed their one year contractual term. He also directed disbursement of their payables and salaries since their termination from service within two months.
After the ministry’s devolution in June, almost 85 petitioners challenged their verbal termination from different projects, including the National Program for Prevention and Control of Hepatitis, National AIDS Control Program (NACP), National Program for Control of Blindness and Expanded Program on Immunisation (EPI).
The petition stated that since the ministry’s transfer to the provinces, they were verbally fired and their salaries stopped. They appealed to the court to regularise them under the Prime Minister’s policy and pay their outstanding dues. The court, after hearing the arguments of both the plaintiff and defendant, disposed of the petitions and ordered the staffs’ regularisation.
Since the enactment of the 18th Amendment, the health sector became a provincial subject and all the national health programs were decentralised except for EPI, NACP, National Tuberculosis Program, National Malaria Control Program and National Hepatitis Control Program.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 15th, 2011.