Unfreezing Funds: SC orders payment of salaries to IRS employees

Division bench of SC passed order on verbal request of ministry’s counsel, to lift restriction on funds frozen since.

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered payment of salaries to the staff of Institute for Regional Studies (IRS), out of the special service expenditure fund managed by the information ministry. The court directed the ministry’s counsel to provide details within two days about other expenditures charged under this head.

A division bench of the SC passed the order on the verbal request of Zulfikar Khalid Malooka, the ministry’s counsel, to lift the restriction on funds frozen since.

When the bench took up the issue of media accountability, Malooka said the IRS staff was deprived of their salaries for the last two months due to the freeze.

Refuting the petitioners’ claims over the operation of special services funds, he said the court was given a misleading figure of Rs4b. He said the total amount under the said funds stood around Rs140m, out of which Rs31m was given to IRS.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18^th, 2012.