Federal govt’s appeal dismissed

Govt must pay federal court staff salaries equal to other court staffers.

LAHORE:

A two-member bench of the Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed the federal government’s appeal challenging an order of the Lahore High Court to increase salaries of federal court staff.

The bench comprising Justices Asif Saeed Khosa and Chaudhry Ijaz Ahmed told Deputy Attorney General Naseem Kashmiri, who was representing the federal government, that the government should raise the salaries in line with the salaries of high courts and the Supreme Court staff.

About 1,100 workers of federal courts (Banking Courts, Customs Courts, Accountability Courts and other tribunals) had signed on to a petition that while salaries of high court and Supreme Court staffers had seen a three-fold jump under the judicial policy, the federal government was not revising their salaries. Their lawyer Aftab Ahmed Bajwa said they performed duties similar to the staff of other courts but were being discriminated against.

He also said after the direction by a single bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC), the federal government should have challenged the order through an intra-court appeal.

Bajwa said the appeal was not maintainable as it did not fulfill the criteria laid down by a seven-member bench of the Supreme Court.

In October 2012, a single bench of the LHC, on the petition of court staff, had ordered the federal government to raise their salaries to the same level as LHC staff. The staff had also filed a contempt of court petition against the federal government for not following court orders.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 1^st, 2013.