Lesco CEO: Court issues notice on appeal against suspension

The appellant submitted that the order of his suspension should be set aside as it was illegal.

LAHORE:

A Lahore High Court division bench on Wednesday issued a notice on Zia Latif’s intra-court appeal against a single bench’s order for his suspension from the post of Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) chief executive officer.

The division bench of Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Ayesha A Malik issued a notice for October 4 (today) and directed Attiqur Rehman, the superintending engineer whose petition had resulted in the Lesco chief’s suspension, to file a reply.

The appellant submitted that the single bench had passed the order in haste and without taking the facts of the case into account. He said that the order of his suspension should be set aside as it was illegal.

Justice Khalid Mahmood Khan, on a petition filed by the superintending engineer, had suspended the notification of Zia Latif’s appointment as Lesco chief executive officer.

His counsel had argued that Latif’s appointment by the Ministry of Water and Power had been illegal as the appointment of the CEO was supposed to be made by the Lesco board of governors, not the Ministry of Water and Power.

He also argued that the post should have been filled with a permanent appointment, rather that a contract appointment in Latif.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 4^th, 2012.