Secy says the project the petitioners had been hired for was shelved.
The Lahore High Court on Friday directed Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) Shrines Secretary Khalid Ali to submit documentary evidence that the Baba Guru Nanak University project had been shelved.
Ali had appeared before the court to contest a petition filed by former ETPB deputy director Afaq Ahmad and other employees seeking contempt proceedings against the board.
The petitioners had challenged their termination as a violation of the court’s order. They had been appointed on a contract in 2009 for a project to establish the Baba Guru Nanak University.
They said that a federal cabinet committee had approved the regularisation of 61 contractual ETPB employees, including the petitioners, in 2011. The board, they said, had only regularised the services of four employees.
The petitioners said that the board later terminated them. They had approached the High Court on the matter and the court had suspended the termination. However, they said, the ETPB authorities had not been complied with the court’s orders. The petitioners requested the court to initiate contempt proceedings against the respondents.
On Friday, the ETPB’s secretary told the court that the project for which the petitioners had been hired had been shelved. However, he failed to explain why some of the employees had been regularised.
Petitioners’ counsel Barrister Syeda Maqsooma Bokhari said that the project had not been shelved.
The secretary also failed to explain why the petitioners’ salaries had been withheld. The court adjourned further hearing till August 29 and directed the shrines secretary to produce documentary evidences to establish his claim about the project.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 24th, 2013.
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