Computer allowance: Finance secretary and AG told to reply

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Monday directed the finance secretary and the accountant general to file a reply to a petition filed by 32 government employees challenging the withdrawal of computer allowance from their monthly salaries. Justice Muhamamad Khalid Mahmood Khan directed the respondents to file a report and parawise comments within two weeks.  Sofia Qaiser and 31 other computer operators working in Sargodha district under the Health Reforms Programme submitted that the government had recruited them in 2007 in grades 15 and 12 on a three-year contract.  They said their services had been regularised when the chief minister in 2010 announced the regularisation of services of all government employees.  They said that after the regularisation the government stopped their monthly computer allowance while that allowance was still being paid to employees in other districts. Their salaries, they said, had been reduced by Rs1,000 for BPS-15 officers and Rs750 for BPS-12 officers. They prayed the court to direct the government to restart the payment of computer allowance to them. They also prayed that the policy be declared unlawful.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 20^th, 2012.