Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial said it was necessary to make judicial staff financially secure in order to maintain an independent judiciary. PHOTO: FILE
The Lahore High Court has sought a comparative report on the salary structure of staff at subordinate courts in Sindh, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan from the finance secretary.
Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial issued this order on Wednesday after Finance Secretary Jahanzeb Khan said that an allowance equivalent to that given to LHC staff could not be given to employees of subordinate courts in the Punjab due to financial constraints.
The chief justice remarked that the judiciary was tasked with the noble cause of dispensing justice and could not be compared to administrative institutions. He said that it was necessary to make judicial staff financially secure in order to maintain an independent judiciary.
Khan had already told the court that a verdict to pay judicial allowance to subordinate judiciary staff had been challenged and an appeal was pending before a division bench. The court adjourned the hearing till December 3.
The petitioners submitted that judicial staff at subordinate courts in the Punjab were performing the same duties, and often a larger volume of work, as LHC employees and were thus entitled to the same pay. They said that the special judicial allowance given to members of the district judiciary and LHC staff was equal to three times the initial substantive pay. The allowance should also be given to the staff at the subordinate judiciary, they said.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 21st, 2013.
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